Perspectives on Early

Islamic Mysticism

This monograph explores the original literary produce of Muslim mystics during
the eighth–tenth centuries, with special attention to ninth-century mystics, such
as al-Tustarī, al-Muḥāsibī, al-Kharrāz, al-Junayd and, in particular, al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī. Unlike other studies dealing with the so-called ‘Formative Period’,
this book focuses on the extant writings of early mystics rather than on the later
Ṣūfī compilations.
These early mystics articulated what would become a hallmark of Islamic
mysticism: a system built around the psychological tension between the self
(nafs) and the heart (qalb) and how to overcome it. Through their writings,
already at this early phase, the versatility, fluidity and maturity of Islamic mysti-
cism become apparent. This exploration thus reveals that mysticism in Islam
emerged earlier than customarily acknowledged, long before Islamic mysticism
became generically known as Ṣūfism.
The central figure of this book is al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, whose teaching and
inner world focus on themes such as polarity, the training of the self, the open-
ing of the heart, the Friends of God (al-awliyāʾ), dreams and visions, divine
­language, mystical exegesis and more.
This monograph thus offers a fuller picture than hitherto presented of the ver-
satility of themes, processes, images, practices, terminology and thought models
during this early period. The volume will be a key resource for scholars and
­students interested in the study of religion, Ṣūfī studies, Late Antiquity and
Medieval Islam.

Sara Sviri is Professor Emerita at the Department of Arabic and the Department
of Comparative Religions of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She had also
taught at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College
London and at The Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Oxford. Her fields
of study include Islamic mysticism, mystical philosophy, comparative aspects of
Early Islam, the formative period of Islamic mysticism, Medieval Jewish mysti-
cism and the mystical wisdom of Ibn al-ʿArabī. Her book The Taste of Hidden
Things: Images on the Sufi Path was published in 1997. Her comprehensive Sufi
Anthology was published in Hebrew in 2008. The Arabic version of the Anthology
came out in Beirut by Manshūrāt a­ l-jamal (2016).
Routledge Sufi Series

General Editor: Ian Richard Netton

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

The Routledge Sufi Series provides short introductions to a variety of facets of the
subject, which are accessible both to the general reader and the student and scholar
in the field. Each book will be either a synthesis of existing knowledge or a dis-
tinct contribution to, and extension of, knowledge of the particular topic. The two
major underlying principles of the Series are sound scholarship and readability.

18  Ibn al-ʿArabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture

From Mysticism to Philosophy
Caner K. Dagli

19  Sufism and Jewish-Muslim Relations

The Derekh Avraham Order
Yafiah Katherine Randall

20  Practicing Sufism

Sufi Politics and Performance in Africa
Edited by Abdelmajid Hannoum

21  Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and the Controversy of the Sufi Gaze
Lloyd Ridgeon

22  Sufism in Ottoman Egypt

Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries
Rachida Chih

23  Perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism

The World of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and his Contemporaries
Sara Sviri

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

middleeaststudies/series/SE0491
Perspectives on Early
Islamic Mysticism
The World of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
and his Contemporaries

Sara Sviri
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Sara Sviri
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To Paul Nwyia, with admiration for his pioneering work
Contents

List of figuresix
Acknowledgementsx

Introduction: perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism – the

world of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and his contemporaries 1

PART I
Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf ) 21

  1 ‘Ṣūfism’: reconsidering terms, definitions and processes 23

 2 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism: conduct and attitude 37
  3 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā: monasticism
and asceticism – false and sincere 58

PART II
Schools and teachers 75

  4 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr 77

  5 Teachers and disciples in Baghdād and Nīshāpūr 102
  6 Facing hostility in Transoxiana: Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
and Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl 123

PART III
Polarity 137

  7 Between fear and hope: coincidence of opposites

in Islamic mysticism 139
viii   Contents
  8 The self (nafs) and her transformation  169
  9 Faces of al-Ḥaqq: the name and the named 192

PART IV
The spiritual hierarchy 215

10 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God 217

11 Myrtle and holy men: echoes of ancient traditions
in a woman’s dream 237

PART V
Language and hermeneutics 265

12 The power of words: mystical linguistics

in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī 267
13 
The Countless Faces of Understanding: Istinbāṭ,
listening and exegesis 298

Bibliography 325
Index 350
Figures

2.1  Map of Salmān’s search for truth 41

6.1  Map of Transoxiana 124
6.2  Scheme of correspondence 131
7.1  Scheme of polar states 152
9.1  Scheme of divine polarity 206
Acknowledgements

The chapters collected in this monograph reflect years of studying Islamic

­Mysticism, in particular its early phases. It all started with taking up Arabic at
school. Hence, first and foremost, my deepest gratitude and indebtedness go to the
late Prof. Meir J. Kister, my Arabic teacher and mentor – first at high school and
then at university. Kister was an inspiring teacher not only for me. It can be clearly
stated, that inspiration and enthusiasm are not confined to the realm of mysticism.
Deep gratitude and indebtedness I wish to extend to Prof. Shaul Shaked. He
supervised my by now ‘ancient’ dissertation on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. During a
difficult and turbulent period in my life, Shaul Shaked’s commitment, support,
expertise and understanding had been essential for the completion of my doctorate.
From among my friends and colleagues at the department of Arabic Lan-
guage and Literature and the Department of Comparative Religion at the
Hebrew University, deep gratitude goes to Ella Almagor, Yohanan Friedman,
Sarah and Guy Stroumsa, David Shulman, Bruria Bitton-Ashkeloni, Reuven
Amitai, Meir Bar-Asher, Meir Hatina and Etan Kohlberg. Their abiding friend-
ship had been there for me at times of presence and absence. Sharing with them
preliminary thoughts and drafts were vital for my attempts at processing and
articulating the vast material at hand.
The idea of the monograph came up years ago when I met Ian Netton in
Oxford. He suggested that I submit a proposal for a book on al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī to the Sufi Studies Series of which he had been the editor. Although
a proposal had been submitted, circumstances intervened to postpone the actual
writing of the monograph. A few years ago, at a conference in Exeter, I again
met Ian and raised the idea of resurrecting the old proposal. Ian, as ever the
editor of Routledge Sufi Series, was forthcoming and supportive and referred me
to Joe Whiting at Routledge. Eventually, the manuscript was submitted in Feb-
ruary 2019 and was immediately placed in the capable and receptive hands of
Titanilla Panczel, an editorial assistant of the Middle Eastern, Islamic and
Jewish Studies at Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. A very special gratitude
I hence forward to Ian Netton, Joe Whiting and Titanilla Panczel, three helpful
agents in the process of publishing the book.
For permission to publish previously published versions, thanks are due to
the following: to Annabel Keeler and Sajjad Rizvi, the editors of The Spirit and
 Acknowledgements  xi
the Letter: Approaches to the Esoteric Interpretation of the Qur’an; to David
Shulman and Guy Stroumsa, the editors of Self and Self-Transformation in the
History of Religions; to the late Leonard Lewisohn, the editor of The Heritage of
Sufism, Vol. 1 and The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, Vol. 2; to Genev-
iève Gobillot and Jean-Jacques Thibon, the editors of Les maîtres Soufis et leurs
disciples: IIIe–Ve siècles de l’hégire IXe–XIe S.: enseignement, formation
et transmission; and to the editors of the periodicals Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam and the Journal of Semitic Studies.
In shaping the chapters enclosed in the monograph, I had been assisted by
dedicated and talented students: Adva Werker, Suzanne Ebraheem and Noga
Feinguelernt. The historian Dr Ronnie Weinstein, a good friend and a perceptive
reader, read the manuscript and offered useful comments. Yael Klein suggested
stylistic and linguistic improvements. The much appreciated and indispensable
help of these dedicated assistants was enabled by a generous grant from
the Israel Scientific Foundation (ISF). During the period of research and writing,
the ISF have supported my work and I wish to extend to them my gratitude.
Last but not least: a special gratitude is due to Dr Guy Ron-Gilboa, a former
doctoral supervisee of mine and now a promising young scholar. Guy’s qualities
as an excellent Arabist and scholar of Early Arabic Literature, as well as his
astute in-depth reading, have been extremely helpful in the various stages of
­preparing the manuscript. It is gratifying to extend to Guy and to all my helpers
a deep warm gratitude.
It goes without saying, that the responsibility for the information and
­interpretation put forward in this monograph is mine.
Introduction
Perspectives on Early Islamic
Mysticism – the world of al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī and his contemporaries

The chapters brought together in this monograph are the outcome of an enduring
study of Islamic Mysticism, in particular its early manifestations. Historically,
these refer to the period from the second/eighth to the fourth/tenth centuries,
during which Muslim mystics wrote the earliest documents that became avail-
able to us. In literary terms, it draws mainly on texts written by individual
authors rather than on manuals and compilations. This can also be said to refer
to the phase before Islamic mysticism became known as Ṣūfism. The main prot-
agonist of my study has been al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, a ninth-century mystic from
the town of Tirmidh in Transoxiana. The main notions that have inspired my
monograph are ‘Sweetness and Inner Struggle’; al-Tirmidhī often uses the word
‘sweetness’ (ḥalāwa), by which he describes the resonance of the mystical
experiences that occur in his heart, while the notion of ‘inner struggle’ reflects
the effort vis-à-vis the nafs, the ‘lower-self’, the ‘personality’, which stands in
his way. These two facets are inseparable; they delineate the polar process
familiar to generations of seekers and wayfarers on the mystical path.

Overview
My study started with a PhD dissertation on the ninth-century mystic al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī.1 The dissertation was supervised by Prof. Shaul Shaked, one of the
great experts of the Iranian religions, who, at that time, had been teaching also
courses on Islamic mysticism. Before embarking on a research proposal, I had
consulted with my university teacher and mentor, Prof. M.J. Kister. As I recall,
he simply referred me to an article by Othman Yahya titled “L’oeuvre de
Tirmiḏī (Essai Bibliographique)”.2 Prior to this, I had not been aware of an
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, a mystic, to be distinguished from Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī,
the renowned ḥadīth compiler. But reading Yahya’s article – mostly a bibliog-
raphy with a short biographical introduction – a few things caught my attention:
first, the large number of titles under al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s name – Yahya lists
106 titles. Though I had already started to familiarize myself with some liter-
ature concerning Ṣūfism, I had not hitherto come across al-Tirmidhī’s name. In
view of the vast corpus attributed to him, I wondered why he had not become a
‘household’ name in the history of Ṣūfism, on a par, say, with al-Junayd,
2   Introduction
al-Ḥallāj or al-Ghazālī. Second, I was intrigued by the information about an
autobiographical text that he composed, apparently with anecdotes concerning
his spiritual awakening and journey and records of his and his wife’s dreams; in
other words: a personal account of a mystical journey. Yahya’s allusion to
al-Tirmidhī’s doctrine of the ‘Seal of Saints’ (khātam al-awliyāʾ), which seemed –
and indeed is – an audacious parallel to the ‘Seal of Prophets’, also sparked my
student’s curiosity. When I realized that a work by al-Tirmidhī, titled Masāʾil
al-taʿbīr (Questions concerning interpretation [of Dreams]), had been published
by A.J. Arberry as early as 1940,3 I felt encouraged by the interest in him by one
of the eminent modern scholars of Islamic mysticism. These scant pieces of
information, against the background of al-Tirmidhī’s early historical appearance
and relative obscurity, were stimuli strong enough for me to embark on a study
of his writings and teachings for a PhD project. In time, as I plunged into the ori-
ginal texts, and as the volume of reading grew, my initial curiosity deepened and
became an absorbed interest which energized my research. These ‘original
texts’, most of them written by al-Tirmidhī or by his contemporaries, opened for
me the richness and complexity, as well as the lasting impact, of the early
Muslim mystics. Over the years, my study branched out into enquiries of histor-
ical, terminological, phenomenological and comparative nature. The ideas and
insights that these enquiries produced were articulated in papers and lectures,
published and delivered in various publications and venues, as well as in folders
full of draft material. This monograph, then, presents my cumulative appraisal of
certain themes and teachings that make out the early period of Islamic mysticism
as I have learnt to see and value it.
Although I touch on historical events and processes, my writing does not
follow, primarily, historiographical and chronological parameters. I am not
intent on presenting a systematic chronology of figures or events, although these
too are touched upon and referred to. My main objective is to bring out themes
and phenomena which, to my understanding, present crucial interests, under-
standings, outlooks and struggles of the early Muslim mystics – as can be
gleaned from their own writing. The main protagonist of these presentations is
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. Since the early days of studying his writings, I have never
stopped marvelling at his original and resolute, not to say audacious, viewpoints
concerning what we may describe as the ‘Phenomenology and Typology of
Friendship with God’ (succinctly: ʿilm al-wilāya). Erudite in the traditional sci-
ences of religion (ʿulūm al-dīn), faithfully falling back on traditions (ḥadīths)
and commentaries (tafsīrs) handed to him by his father and by other transmit-
ters, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī nevertheless firmly upholds the notion that divine
knowledge (ʿilm Allāh, maʿrifa, ḥikma) is handed directly to chosen men, the
‘Friends of God’ (awliyāʾ Allāh), not by means of learning and intellection, but
by means of revealed inspiration. This appears in the heart, when it is ready to
receive it; it may descend in the form of dreams, visions and intuitions.
Undoubtedly, his writing implies that he considered himself to be one of the
chosen ones; accordingly, what he wrote, he saw as emanating from direct
divine teaching. As his short autobiography shows, he most probably also
 Introduction   3
regarded his wife, whose name he does not disclose, as one of God’s ‘friends’.
Among dreams and revelations that she had experienced in the night, related to
him in the morning and which he consequently recorded in his own time, one in
particular should be mentioned, in which it was revealed to her that both she and
her husband “are together at the same place …” (see Chapter 11). Moreover, her
dreams in many respects conveyed messages addressed to him as divine teach-
ings. Here is an example: his wife dreams about a menace impending on their
hometown from an invading army and its formidable commander. All the town’s
inhabitants crowd together terrified on the high road, for the commander
(al-amīr) and his army are known for their ferocity and mercilessness. Thirty-
nine men are taken captive and incarcerated in an enclosure. All are waiting for
the fortieth, the saviour; the crowd even murmur his name: Muḥammad ibn
ʿAlī, her husband. Then he indeed appears, tall and regal in new white clothes,
and joins the thirty-nine captives in the enclosure. He is the awaited fortieth who
completes the number of the chosen ones, without whom, the world with all its
localities and denizens cannot subsist. When he arrives, the commander is
appeased, the troops withdraw and the town and its inhabitants are out of harm’s
way (on the forty abdāl, see Chapter 10).4 In the context of the ‘science of the
Friends’, it is obvious that al-Tirmidhī’s bold and uncommon doctrine of the
‘Seal of Saints’ (khātam al-awliyāʾ), a doctrine that had sparked off my interest
in the early days of studying him, should be reiterated.5
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī is the central figure in these assembled chapters, but
I also refer to other early mystics whose writings are extant. The literary corpus,
which existed prior to the later compilatory literature, merits a special label:
I refer to it as ‘the pre-compilations’ literature.6 Indeed, most of our information con-
cerning Islamic mysticism derives from the genre known as Ṣūfī compilations, or
Ṣūfī manuals.7 The earliest compilation, probably al-Kalābādhī’s Kitāb al-taʿarruf
­li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, or al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, appeared in the late
fourth/tenth century. Yet the earlier extant corpus of mystical writings originated
from the second/eighth to the fourth/tenth centuries. It includes ­writings by Shaqīq
al-Balkhī (d. 195/810), al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857), Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), Abū
Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899) al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c.910), Abū al-Qāsim al-
Junayd (d. 298/910), al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922) and a few other
mystics whose writings, apparently original, ­survived. The lives and teachings of
these early mystics, to a greater or lesser extent, have been researched by modern
scholars. Since my own research has focused on al-Tirmidhī, it behoves me to list a
few of the scholarly works ­concerning them that have inspired and informed me.
First and foremost on this list is the monumental study of al-Ḥallāj by Louis
Massignon.8 Written in French, its four volumes, data-laden, were translated into
English by Herbert Mason, who wrote also an abridged version and his own
short monograph titled Al-Hallaj.9 Massignon’s study is indispensable not only
for the study of al-Ḥallāj but for many themes concerning the religious culture
of the first Islamic centuries. Al-Ḥallāj’s Dīwān, his Kitāb al-Ṭawāsīn and the
collection of narratives titled Akhbār al-Ḥallāj concerning his extraordinary
life and feats were first published by Massignon10 (the Akhbār together with
4   Introduction
Paul Kraus)11 and came out henceforth in various editions and translations. This
rich corpus has strengthened my conviction that in the third/ninth century, mys-
tical life and writing had already been vibrant and variegated.12
Second in the line-up comes al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī. He first caught the
­attention of Margaret Smith (d. 1970), an early twentieth-century scholar of
Christian and Islamic mysticism and one of the first women to study at the
University of Cambridge. In al-Muḥāsibī’s teachings, she recognized a special
attention to ‘inner work’, the ‘actions of the hearts’ (aʿmāl al-qulūb), and the
continuation of the inward-looking practices of the Syriac Church fathers, espe-
cially Isaac of Nineveh (c.613–c.700). Her seminal work An Early Mystic of
Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith B. Asad al-Muḥāsibī a.d.
781–85713 was joined by an edition of al-Muḥāsibī’s important work, Kitāb
al-riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh (The Book of Observance of what is due to God).14
Later, Josef van Ess, one of the most esteemed contemporary scholars of Early
Islam, also took interest in al-Muḥāsibī. His Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥārit
al-Muḥāsibī has been a great source of information as well as offering a meth-
odological paradigm for the study of early Islamic mysticism.15 In 1994,
ʿUwaiḍa’s monograph in Arabic came out in Beirut titled Al-Ḥārith b. Asad
al-Muḥāsibī al-ʿālim al-zāhid al-faqīh (Al-Muḥāsibī: Scholar, Renunciant and
Jurisprudent).16 The most recent study of al-Muḥāsibī is Gavin Picken’s
­Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muḥāsibī.17
Sahl al-Tustarī, too, caught the attention of several scholars. In 1980, Gerhard
Böwering published his brilliant monograph on him. For me, it has always been
an exemplary study of the earliest mystical Qurʾān commentary recorded. Its
astute observations and analysis of al-Tustarī in particular, as well as of early
mystical manifestations in Islam in general, have been an eye-opener.18 More
recently, Annabel and Ali Keeler took up the massive task of publishing an
annotated English translation of Sahl’s tafsīr.19
Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd and Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz are two well-known and
often cited early mystics. The study of their original works, however, has been
rather scarce. In 1962, Abdel-Kader’s monograph, The Life, Personality and
Writings of al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth Century Mystic, was pub-
lished.20 In 2004, Suʿād al-Ḥakīm published the collected works of al-Junayd,
together with an analysis and study. It is titled Tāj al-ʻārifīn, al-Junayd
al-Baghdādī: al-aʻmāl al-kāmilah (The Crown of the Knowers: Al-Junayd’s
Collected Works).21 Roger Deladrière’s 1983 annotated French translation, titled
Abū ‘l-Qāsim al-Junayd. Enseignement spirituel: traités, lettres, oraisons et
­sentences, should also be mentioned.22
As for Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, scholarly works on him are oddly wanting.
Despite A.J. Arberry’s 1937 edition and translation of Kitāb al-Ṣidq (The Book
of Truthfulness)23 and al-Sāmarrāʾī’s 1967 edition of Rasāʾil al-Kharrāz24 – both
publications contain enlightening Introductions – I am aware of one study only:
Kīlānī’s 2012 al-Imām al-Kharrāz shaykh al-fanāʼ wa-al-baqāʼ (Al-Kharrāz,
The Master of Annihilation and Permanence).25 Between Arberry’s and
Sāmarrāʾī’s editions, we have at our disposal seven ‘epistles’ (rasā’il) or ‘books’
 Introduction  5
(kutub) composed by al-Kharrāz: on Truthfulness (ṣidq); on Purity (Kitāb
al-Ṣafā’); on Bright Light (Kitāb al-Ḍiyā’); on Revelation and Explication
(Kitāb al-Kashf wa ’l-Bayān); on Emptiness (Kitāb al-Farāgh); on True Real-
ities (Kitāb al-Ḥaqā’iq) and on Secret (Kitāb al-Sirr). They are a treasure trove
for anyone interested in the development of terminology, ideas, practices and
issues pertaining to the mystical culture during the third/ninth-century Islam.
Had I not been intent on compiling this monograph with particular attention to
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, and had I longer research time on my hands – I would no
doubt turn my scholarly attention to this central figure. At any rate, such
research should not fail to follow the important material and astute analysis con-
cerning al-Kharrāz in Paul Nwyia’s seminal Exégèse coranique et langage
mystique.26
I have left Shaqīq al-Balkhī, the earliest mystic whose works are extant, to
the end of this list. This is in order to connect him with Paul Nwyia just men-
tioned above, to whom I feel indebted in many ways – especially for making
available the writings of this early mystic.27 I refer to Shaqīq al-Balkhī in various
chapters of this monograph, as one in whose writings we can already observe the
basic parameters of Islamic mysticism (see especially Chapters 1, 3 and 8).
Scrutinizing Nwyia’s publications associated with early mystics, I can only con-
jecture that he too saw the importance of exhibiting their early writings and of
drawing from them the structure and essence of Islamic mysticism. It is thus sad
and unfortunate that his premature death in 1980 left his endeavour unfinished.
Indeed, I concur with what I assume had been Nwyia’s perspective, namely, that
these first-hand works, written in different parts of the Islamic world, throw light
on the early stages at which the mystical culture, subsequently known as Ṣūfism,
had been taking shape. In studying the early phase of Islamic mysticism and in
referring to works written earlier than, and outside of, the later compilatory liter-
ature, I humbly follow in the footsteps of this esteemed scholar (whom I had
never had the good fortune to meet) and dedicate this monograph to his memory.

The twofold perspective of this study: a digression

The compilatory literature, though not central, remains present in this mono-
graph, not only for relevant parallels and references, but also to put in relief the
evolutionary lines of what was eventually identified as Ṣūfism, an identification
based mainly on these very compilations. Hence, in studying original writings as
the basis for analyses and comparisons with the later genre, I will envisage the
materials at hand from two perspectives simultaneously: the one finite and
closed – as behoves past things; the other fluid and open-ended as befits a
process at work. I maintain that without holding such a twofold perspective, one
risks losing sight of the mutability, fluidity and diversity of processes in trans-
ition implied by the very notion of ‘early manifestations’, which, at times, is
referred to also as ‘the formative period’.
A digression is due here for pondering this twofold perspective in the study
of a ‘formative period’. Viewing and reviewing a ‘formative period’ of any
6   Introduction
historical body presents a methodological and epistemological challenge. While
bias and preconceived ideas can hardly be avoided in any historical study, what
is specific to studying a ‘formative period’ – which is ostensibly in the throes of
being formed – is the need to be aware of built-in distortions that stem from
observing, in hindsight, evolving processes as faits accomplis. In terms of
Islamic mysticism, such distortions are apparent not only in academic research,
but also in the sources themselves, namely, in the Ṣūfī compilations, upon which
research falls back. Whereas the compilatory genre bears the hallmarks of later
redactors, who, in line with by now established paradigms and favourite narrat-
ives, rewrote, fashioned, sorted out and selected memories, events and concepts
pertaining to former personalities, the original writings of the earlier stage
record ideas, persons, experiences and terminology in a more immediate, less
designed, fashion. The later Ṣūfī corpus, therefore, should be reviewed alongside
its built-in distortions and bias. Expressed more bluntly: comparing earlier
materials with the cumulative compilatory corpus reveals deliberate attempts at
aligning the early with the contemporary. We can see in it a deliberate wish to
iron out what became obsolete or distasteful to later perceptions.
A well-known case in point is the wide-ranging Ṣūfī attitude towards
al-Ḥallāj. Not only was he incarcerated by the ʿAbbasid authorities in Baghdād,
apparently for his ecstatic utterances, he was executed there – for all intents and
purposes a dramatic event with severe consequences.28 The Baghdādī Ṣūfīs,
some of whom had been his former companions, and especially al-Junayd, his
former master, ignored him and turned their back on him – all but a few.
Regardless of these unusual events, the compilatory literature, especially
al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, virtually ignores him.29 In stark contrast, al-Sarrāj
dedicates several sections to the ecstatic utterances of Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī,
despite their being no less audacious. These are accompanied by al-Junayd’s
extensive apologetic interpretations of these ecstatic utterances. What are the
implications of such a discrepancy and such omissions? I suggest that the later
compilers often chose the method of silencing, not to say censoring, the voices
which appeared too offensive and out-of-line to their contemporaries’ taste and
ideology. Beyond the different leanings of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth
­centuries – mystical, theological, sectarian – that played out their different
­‘political’ roles in the events of this period, and which had been researched in
depth by Massignon and his followers, one should also heed to the method of
‘silencing’, or adjusting, of the materials at hand. Thus, omissions and variances
surely reflect the way in which the compilatory culture attuned itself to the
­prevailing preconceptions and prejudice of its ambience.
Another example of a remarkable divergence, to which there is hardly any
evidence in the compilations, takes me back to al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī; it
­concerns the divine name al-Ḥaqq. As is commonly known, one of the most
characteristic usages in Ṣūfī vocabulary is the divine name al-Ḥaqq (literally:
the True; the Truth; the Just). In the Ṣūfī lore, al-Ḥaqq – one of the ninety-nine
beautiful names of God – had become the one by which Ṣūfīs chose to refer to
Allāh.30 However, in the writings of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, the meaning and use
 Introduction   7
of al-Ḥaqq is altogether different. For him, al-Ḥaqq appears as a formidable,
disciplinary, heavenly persona, or hypostasis, nominated over law and order in
the world at large as well as in the lives and afterlives of human beings. Among
his special tasks is watching over the process of edification to which the ‘Friends
of God’ (awliyāʾ Allāh) are subjected. As I deal with this theme at length in
Chapter 9, I shall defer its elaboration to that chapter. A few points, however,
should be observed here: al-Tirmidhī’s distinctive and extensive view and use of
al-Ḥaqq did not have a follow-up in contemporary or later writings. The compi-
lations, as we recall, reflect conclusively the Ṣūfī predilection for al-Ḥaqq as the
unequivocal designation of Allāh. Nevertheless, a few other paradigms, not
necessarily directly stemming from al-Tirmidhī’s outlook, echo his under-
standing of al-Ḥaqq’s extraordinary cosmic function. The first relates to mystical-
philosophical writings, mostly those inspired by Neoplatonic modes of thought,
where we find the concept of al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi – ‘al-ḥaqq by means of
which creation was created’. This phrasing, or rather ‘paraphrasing’ of the
Qurʾān (especially of Q. 10:5 – see note 34 below), eschews the use of al-ḥaqq
as an abstract noun denoting Truth, Reality and Justice, and sees in it a personi-
fied, instrumental entity in the Creator’s service. Two early illustrations of this
understanding will suffice: in the Epistle on Letters, Ibn Masarra, the tenth-cen-
tury ce Andalusian philosopher-mystic, in the context of describing
the sacred meanings of letters, writes: “The ḥāʾ stands for al-ḥaqq, by which the
earth and the heavens were created”.31 And the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān
al-Ṣafāʾ), a tenth-century ce (or earlier) group of intellectuals with Ismāʿīlī
­leanings from Baṣra,32 write in their Epistles:

… The root (aṣl) is that for which the heavens and earth and what inheres in
them and between them were created – this is al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi, con-
cerning which Allāh said: “Allāh did not create all this except by means of
al-ḥaqq” (Q. 10:5).33

These illustrations show that, alongside al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, other mystical

currents in the early Muslim world, undoubtedly echoing late antique esoteric
traditions, also envisaged a cosmic divine system, in which al-Ḥaqq played a
creative, dynamic and instrumental role. These mystical currents, represented
here by Ibn Masarra and the Brethren of Purity, portray a non-Ṣūfī mystical
model concerning which the classical compilations are silent. Although
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, despite his idiosyncratic ideas, was ultimately endorsed
by the Ṣūfī compilers – as can be seen by his presence in most Ṣūfī compilations –
the Andalusian and Ismāʿīlī mystics were not. The Ṣūfī compilations include
neither Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī mystics nor Andalusian ones. As for the sixth/twelfth–­
seventh/thirteenth-century Ibn al-ʿArabī, an Andalusian mystic who discusses
al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi at length and who, despite having many radical ideas,
did eventually become part of the Ṣūfī lore, he belongs to a later period, later
than most classical compilations and definitely beyond the boundaries of the
­so-called ‘formative one’.34
8   Introduction
Late Antiquity
Throughout this monograph, I refer to ‘Late Antiquity’. The historical and
­cultural background of Late Antiquity vis-à-vis Early Islam is, I am aware, a
contentious point among the faithful and scholars alike. Leaving argumentations
aside, in my work I have come to realize that this pre-Islamic period, with its
rich religious cultures and philosophies, should be revisited without prejudice,
for it reveals many signposts that mark the continuous flow of thought patterns,
images and models into Early Islam. Currently, there has been a growing schol-
arly interest in the juxtaposition of Late Antiquity and Early Islam. However,
despite a number of prestigious research projects, initiated and carried out by
eminent scholars in related fields, the ‘mystical’ spheres, to the best of my
knowledge, have not been systematically included or researched.35
The material gathered and explored in this monograph shows that Early Islam
has been porous to ideas, images and other cultural patterns, which had existed
for centuries in the former historical phase labelled ‘Late Antiquity’. I confine
my statement to Islamic mysticism, though I am convinced – and the research
projects mentioned above support my conviction – that it is valid also in respect
of other cultural areas and literary branches. As for Islamic mysticism, to the
extent explored in this monograph, these are my contributions: the image of the
‘myrtle’, explored in Chapter 10, is particularly laden with late antique ante-
cedents. Mystical Linguistics, as can be seen from Chapter 12, is another subject
matter which is hard to review without attention to a plethora of a late antique
background examples. Clear traces of Jewish, Christian, Neoplatonic or Gnostic
traditions are reverberated also in mystical hermeneutics, as I show in Chapter
13. The widespread engagement of mystics with ‘polarity’ (also binarity) – in
Existence, in the divine realm, in human psychological make-up, in mystical
states and in phenomena at large – reveals an obvious continuation, in particular
of the mitigating coincidentia oppositorum structures, spreading from Hellenis-
tic philosophies, Rabbinic Judaism, Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. This theme
I explore in Part III: “Polarity”. The build-up of the particular type of ‘asceti-
cism’, which advocates sincere attitude rather than extroverted behaviour, can
also be seen in light of the challenge of contemporary Christian and Manichaean
monastic and ascetical practices and ideologies. This I explore in Part I: “Asceticism
and Mysticism”.
A word about ‘continuity’ versus ‘influence’. In scholarship, the topic of
‘influence’ often opens a polemical or apologetic discourse: Who influenced
whom, how, why – these and similar ones are imminent questions in dealing
with historical aspects of cultural patterns. With regards to Scriptures, questions
of influence and borrowings are especially pregnant with the opposition of faith
versus free thought, observance versus heresy. For example, the stories of the
prophets in the Qurʾān: is there a biblical influence behind them or must the bib-
lical versions be rejected as a tendentious corruption, abrogation or forgery
(taḥrīf)?36 My research has convinced me that ‘influence’ is too rigid a concept
in relating to the slow osmotic flow of late antique patterns into Early Islam.
 Introduction   9
‘Rigidity’ in methodology may be the response of honest philologists and historians
to a touch of laxity in the approach of scholars who assign ‘influences’ too
easily, without thorough historical and/or philological research. I concur with
this methodology, which had been part of my academic schooling. However,
I also suggest that the distinction between ‘influence’ and ‘continuity’ should be
highlighted. Behind genuine influence there exists a certain awareness, manifested
as either reception or rejection, of that which, allegedly, has been the source and
content of influence. Continuity, on the other hand, does not require a conscious
attitude from either agent or receiver; it is simply there, evidenced by the occur-
rences themselves presented, usually innocuously or even unconsciously, in the
sources. Moreover, in terms of continuity, it is not always easy or possible to
show the precise or original agent/s of the flow of patterns and images, as these
are copiously prevalent in different late antique sources. Chapter 11 exemplifies
this osmotic process by means of an in-depth reading of a dream, laden with
ancient symbolic meanings, dreamt by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s wife.

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and mainstream Ṣūfism

How, after all this, is al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī linked to mainstream Ṣūfism?
Mainly by two cords: first and foremost by means of his teaching on wilāya, the
intimate and potent relationship between man and God. Although he was not the
first to write about the friends of God, the awliyāʾ, his comprehensive study and
observations which are steeped with the theme of the ‘friendship with God’, was
bequeathed to all later strands of the Ṣūfī tradition.37 Evidently, it is for this
reason that al-Hujwīrī, in Kashf al-maḥjūb, discusses wilāya in the section he
devotes to the Ḥakīmīs, namely, the followers of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.38 This
teaching is inextricably connected with al-Tirmidhī’s concern with an in-depth
understanding of human nature and his ensuing psychological system – what
I have called his ‘Mystical Psychology’; in particular, his exploration of what is
required for the making of an extraordinary human being. These themes are
mainly discussed in Chapter 10.
Both wilāya and mystical psychology are described by al-Tirmidhī in terms
of a binarity which he observes overall – in the world, in human life and in the
divine realm. Binarity – which is often named ‘polarity’ or ‘the complementarity
of opposites’ – is a most prolific feature of Ṣūfī teaching. Being rooted in
Qurʾānic verses, it has been evinced in Islamic literary records from their
earliest phases onwards; it is particularly associated with the polar states and sta-
tions on the mystical path (al-aḥwāl wa-’l-maqāmāt, al-aḥwāl al-muqābila).
Thinking and imagining in polar categories became prevalent in all strata and
phases of Ṣūfī literature, hence many references here are derived from both the
early writings as well as from the later compilatory literature. In Chapter 7,
“Between Fear and Hope”, I discuss the ubiquitous presence of polarity in the
nascent Ṣūfī culture and beyond and explore some of its antecedents in the
Qurʾān and in Late Antiquity. Experientially, through fluctuating polar states,
the mystic is being pulled to experiencing a state of cognitive and spiritual
10   Introduction
­integration (jamʿ) of polarity into a mystical oneness (jamʿ al-jamʿ, unio mystica,
coincidentia oppositorum). The inner personal polarity experienced on the mys-
tical journey reflects, according to Ṣūfī statements, the vision of God’s supreme
polar attributes and names: He is both awe-inspiring and majestic as well as
merciful and all-embracing; both the Avenger (al-muntaqim) and the Merciful
(al-Raḥmān).39 This coincidence is pithily formulated by the sixth–seventh/
twelfth–thirteenth-century Ibn al-ʿArabī who, quoting the third/ninth-century
mystic Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, sees in polarity and the ensuing integration of the
opposites the key to fathoming the mystical knowledge of God: “Abū Saʿīd was
asked: by what have you known God? He said: by [the fact] that He brings
opposites together (bi-jamʿihi bayna al-ḍiddayni)”.40 This is how Ibn al-ʿArabī,
delving deeper, sums up the inherent paradox of existence seen through the mys-
tical cognition of polarity: “Every entity (ʿayn) predicated on being (wujūd) is it/
not it; the entire world is it/not it; al-Ḥaqq who appears in a form is He/not He –
He is the limited that is unlimited; the seen that is unseen.”41
To sum, and as I write in the Appendix to “Between Fear and Hope”
(Chapter 10): “[I]n the large corpus of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, this structure
inheres in the core of his thought.” It can thus be seen as one of his major
bequests for later generations of Islamic mystics, mainstream and otherwise.

Ṣūfism, asceticism, mysticism

In the early days of studying al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, I referred to him, as well as
to the contemporaries with whom he had been in contact, by the attribute ṣūfī,
with no second thoughts. Hence the title of my dissertation: “The Mystical
Psychology of the Ṣūfī al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī”. I was studying an early Muslim
mystic; hence, ‘Ṣūfī’ seemed the appropriate designation, confirmed by the
overarching and accepted application of ‘Ṣūfīs’ and ‘Ṣūfism’ to Islamic mystics
and mysticism. We, researchers in the field of early Islamic mysticism, had
been ‘seduced’ by what appeared to be the common knowledge which the later
compilations inspired.42 Subsequently, however, it became evident that, from
the perspective of the early period of Islamic mysticism, this designation was
not at all appropriate. Early figures such as al-Muḥāsibī, al-Tirmidhī, the
Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr and others, were indeed mystics, but they were hardly
identified by themselves or by others as ‘Ṣūfīs’. Moreover, most of them
intensely disapproved of the practice of wearing a rough woollen garment
(libās al-ṣūf) – the ascetic practice denoting a wilful renunciation of life’s
­comforts. This practice, in due course, lent itself to the designation ṣūfī or
mutaṣawwif, but in the eyes of most early mystics, such conduct announced
showing off (shuhra), of which they strongly disapproved. The literary outcome
has proven to be rather confusing. In early sources, a ṣūfī, namely, a ‘wool-
wearer’, was synonymous with ‘ascetic’ (zāhid) and the infinitive taṣawwuf
with ‘asceticism’ (zuhd). Some of these so-called ‘Ṣūfīs’ were wandering
beggars, roaming the roads and towns of Early Islam, living off leftovers and
coins donated by settled townsmen. But the early mystics saw this dress code,
 Introduction   11
when not resulting from genuine circumstances of poverty, as an act of
­‘showing-off’ (shuhra, riyāʾ) – ostentatious behaviour that, to them, was counter-
productive to the cultivation of sincerity (ṣidq) and faithfulness (ikhlāṣ), ­virtues
that are enhanced by man’s interiority rather than exhibited in his outer
behaviour. Since the path of extroverted asceticism did not go hand in hand
with the path of inner sincerity, ṣūfī, for many early mystics, was a pejorative
term, unbecoming of a true seeker of divinely bestowed truth.43 Part I of the
monograph deals with several aspects of asceticism versus mysticism – in
­particular, Chapters 2 and 3.
One of the outcomes of exploring this topic, is also my reconsideration of the
conventional paradigm, according to which Islamic mysticism, eventually
known as Ṣūfism, emerged from asceticism (zuhd) through a gradual process of
interiorization and contemplation. This paradigm, which, curiously, is one of the
most unchallenged theories in the field of Islamic studies, has become so wide-
spread among academic scholars that it may prove hard to uproot. As I show in
Chapter 1, the first to formulate it among Muslim scholars, to the best of my
knowledge, was the eighth/fourteenth-century Ibn Khaldūn. Subsequently, it
was embraced by modern scholarship, most notably by Ignaz Goldziher, and
henceforth has been adopted by (almost) all scholars engaged with Islamic
­mysticism (for more details, see Chapter 1, notes 39–42). In the above-­
mentioned chapters, I have tried to distinguish between different views of
­asceticism in Early Islam and have discussed the distinction which early mystics
and pietists make between ‘attitude’ as an internal psychological phenomenon
and ‘conduct’ as a behavioural phenomenon. I have thus pursued their distinction
between false and sincere conduct and its traditional, conceptual and mystical
implications.
It may be asked why, then, I insist on labelling early personalities such as
al-Muḥāsibī and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī as ‘mystics’ in the first place – what
makes them ‘mystics’ when there are no social or behavioural parameters by
which to underpin them? From the point of view of the Study of Religions dis-
cipline, this is a tricky question to answer. For many decades, scholars have
attempted to define, defend or dethrone the twin concepts of ‘mysticism’ and
‘mystics’ – concepts so slippery and biased that they defy clear nomenclature
and definition. Among contemporary scholars of religions at large, these con-
cepts have fallen out of favour altogether. Strong objections have been raised
particularly by scholars of Jewish and Islamic systems, since neither Hebrew
(or, for that matter, Aramaic) nor Arabic have terms precisely equivalent to, or
etymologically related to ‘mysticism’, whose origins are Greek and Christian.44
In comparison, the term ‘Ṣūfī’, regardless of its ambiguity and shifting mean-
ings, allows, at least, for some social, historical, behavioural and etymological
underpinnings nurtured in the field of Islamic Studies. But since my monograph
is concerned with the “Early Manifestations of Islamic Mysticism”, a choice has
to be made; in fact, it has been made: I choose to use derivatives of ‘mysticism’
liberally, rather than to steer towards alternatives such as ‘spiritual/ity’, ‘esoteric/
ism’ or to devise individual neologisms. My approach, phenomenologically and
12   Introduction
historically, is therefore to accept ‘mysticism’ as a valid term for a particular
type of religious quest; by the same token, ‘mystic’, for me, is an appropriate
term for a certain type of person engaged in a quest which I dare to name
­‘mystical’. In order not to perpetuate a possible tautology, I shall simply argue
that the primary question at hand, as I see it, is not of designation, but of the
delineation of the typology that makes out those who may be labelled, and have
been labelled, ‘Muslim mystics’,45 and in particular those who may be addition-
ally labelled ‘early’. In this attempt, I have resorted, whenever available, to
primary sources rather than to modern (or post-modern) scholarly deliberations
on the phenomenology, sociology and anthropology of mysticism. In Chapter 1,
I discuss these issues in more detail. As for the features of Islamic mystics, early
and late, Ṣūfī and non-Ṣūfī, the following is a brief outline of the perspectives
conveyed in this monograph.

The nature of early Islamic mysticism

Primary literature from as early as the second/eighth century portrays Muslim
men and women who, despite their undisputed piety and loyalty to traditional
precepts, felt unfulfilled by their sheer religious observation or by hopes for
reward in the afterlife. They were stirred by a yearning to seek, while still in
their earthly lives, God’s intimate nearness (qurb, uns) and love (ḥubb) and to
search out the path that would take them to the realization of these aspirations.
Hence, they were known as ‘seekers’ (murīdūn) and nicknamed ‘wayfarers’
(sāʾiḥūn, sālikūn). Their yearning for God’s nearness led them to seek a direct
‘knowledge of God’ (al-ʿilm bi-llāh, maʿrifa); thus, they were also nicknamed
‘the knowers’ (al-ʿārifūn, ahl al-ʿilm bi-’llāh). They were convinced that clues
to the divine knowledge had been strewn in verses of the Qurʾān and in sacred
traditions, prophetic and divine. Thus, they were intent on exploring, and find-
ing, the hidden meanings of verses and sayings. These defining elements – search,
intimate nearness to God, love of and by God and God’s knowledge – are the
essential components of the mystical life in Early Islam and beyond. In their
own vocabulary, Muslim mystics have been stirred by an aspiration to fulfil their
highest vocation as ‘men of sincerity’ (ahl al-ṣidq),46 men of certitude (ahl
al-yaqīn) and God’s friends (awliyāʾ Allāh) – a spiritual elite (al-khāṣṣa) among
ordinary worshippers (al-ʿāmma). Contemplating their fallible human nature,
they realized that the main obstacle for realizing their aspirations was their
inbuilt culpable interiority, characterized by ceaseless appetites and attachments
to things of this world. They named this ‘interiority’ the nafs, the self, and
watched how she collaborated with a cluster of associates (aʿdāʾ, enemies),
psychological as well as cosmic: the inclination (al-hawā) and the Adversary
(al-ʿaduww).47 Antithetical to the nafs in the human make-up was the heart
(qalb), with its subtle, layered structure. This was the inner-layered member
which held the true core of their being (the sirr, secret) – in their imagery: the
abode of God on earth. Hence, a prerequisite to attaining their inspirations was
the cleansing of the interiority; in their idiom: fighting the self (mujāhadat
 Introduction   13
­al-nafs) and polishing of the mirror of the heart (taṣqīl mirʾāt al-qalb). It meant
striving to ‘cut the worldly attachments’ (qaṭʿ al-ʿalāʾiq) and to ‘curtail the self-
ish appetites’ (qaṭʿ al-shahawāt). This preliminary stage in the cleansing
process, they often named ‘abstention’ (zuhd).48 According to one of the earliest
texts available to us, the objective of this stage was to begin the transformation
of the dark forces governing human nature into luminous energies that herald a
mystical existence. Zuhd or zahāda, in the sense of abstention from worldly
interests, thus denoted a stage in the process of self-transformation, rather than
extroverted practices. These questions, and their contribution to the under-
standing of what Islamic mysticism actually entails, are pondered throughout
this monograph, and mainly in Chapters 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10.

Practices and the power of language

Conventionally, Ṣūfism is associated with certain practices, in particular dhikr
(remembrance) and samāʿ (listening). In addition, Ṣūfī compilations include
many sections exhibiting special etiquette, ādāb, designed to regulate the
behaviour of the companions in Ṣūfī gatherings, for example, in terms of eating,
dressing, conversing and cleansing; they also include etiquettes prescribing
norms of behaviour when alone and in the company of a Master. To students of
Ṣūfism, old and modern, such practices seem a sine qua non of the Ṣūfī path. In
the early literature, however, communal practices – to be distinguished from
individual practices of ‘training of the self’ (riyāḍāt al-nafs) – are scarcely
­discussed.49 Nevertheless, occasionally some practices can be traced. Dhikr, for
example, in the sense of periods allocated to the ‘remembrance of God’ beyond
the prescribed canonical prayers, is no doubt a very old practice. In Badʾ shaʾn,
al-Tirmidhī’s autobiographical document, he briefly mentions night gatherings,
in which he and his companions used to convene in order to ‘remember’ God:
“We used to have meetings in the nights in which we would debate matters with
one another (natanāẓaru), remember with one another (natadhākaru), call out
[to God] (nadʿū) and beseech [Him] (nataḍarraʿu) till dawn.”50 A few sections
later, he recounts a mystical experience which took place when he was on his
way home after such a gathering:

While this was going on, we convened one night for dhikr (ijtamaʿnā
­laylatan ʿalā ‘l-dhikr) in the hospitality of one of our brethren. … [On my
way back home], my heart was burst open in a manner that I cannot
describe (fa‘nfataḥa qalbī fatḥan lā aqdiru an aṣifahu); it was as if
­something fell into my heart (wa-ka-annahu waqaʿa fī qalbī shayʾ).51

That dhikr had been pondered and practised in depth by al-Tirmidhī and his
companions is evident also from one of his teaching treatises titled “A Question
Concerning Dhikr and its Levels” (masʾala fī ‘l-dhikr wa-darajātihi).52 This is a
detailed composition, presented as a teaching discourse, which explores the mul-
tifaceted processes – physiological, psychological, mystical and cosmic – that
14   Introduction
take place when dhikr is sincerely practised. This is an extraordinary piece of
writing, which may be described as an Ode to the Remembrance of God. It
should be read in conjunction with two other works by al-Tirmidhī, which
I repeatedly mention: Sīrat al-awliyāʾ and Riyāḍāt al-nafs. But since I have not
dealt with this piece in any of the monograph’s chapters, I will not linger on
referring to it in this Introduction.
Associated with dhikr is the notion of the sanctity and efficacy of language,
what in modern terminology may be referred to as ‘performative language’. In
Chapter 12, I explore al-Tirmidhī’s deep regard for language as a sacred and
potent tool and his faith in the protective power of linguistic formulae against
personal and collective calamities. These linguistic formulae are ‘words of
power’ pronounced repeatedly with intention and attention at certain rituals, or
spontaneously in times of need: these are prayers, invocations (duʿāʾ, adʿiya,
daʿawāt), silent discourse with God (najwā, munājāh) and, most importantly,
the calling out of divine names to invoke the divine power. In exploring this
topic, I follow al-Tirmidhī’s mystical linguistics – perhaps the most profound
aspect of his teaching – and his unconventional understanding of the intrinsic
connection of a ‘name’ (or ‘word’) with the essence of a thing (shayʾ). A name
is a name by dint of ‘something’ active, and potentially activating, that inheres
in its root letters and their combination. This mysterious ‘something’, when
grasped and decoded, both reveals the essential nature of the ‘thing’ it names as
well as empowers it. The origin of this power is in the life-bestowing word kun
(Be!), spoken by God in each and every creative act. Hence, the ability to acti-
vate ‘things’ by ‘words’ derives from a superior knowledge of the power of cre-
ative language, a knowledge that is not universally available; it inspires only the
‘Friends of God’, the awliyāʾ, those endowed with divine wisdom, without
which the mysteries of the life-energy contained in language cannot be per-
ceived or acted with. This is an essential feature of the ‘friendship with God’
typology: ʿilm al-awliyāʾ is, in fact, tantamount to the knowledge of the secrets
of language.53
Deciphering and decoding language, especially sacred language, are vital to
scriptural hermeneutics (tafsīr), to the understanding of the divine words con-
tained in the Qurʾānic verses. Exploring the ideas and concepts of Muslim
mystics in this field, I have again become aware of the prevailing pre-Islamic
reverberations that they encompass. In Chapter 13, relying on original works as
well as on the Ṣūfī compilations, I explore some aspects of mystical hermeneu-
tics which advocate the practice of ‘listening’. The chapter unfolds from
exploring the notion of istinbāṭ, ‘drawing out’, which, allegedly, was thought to
denote Ṣūfī hermeneutics in particular, in distinction from other types of exege-
sis. I conclude that istinbāṭ is not confined to Ṣūfī writings and terminology but
should be seen in larger literary contexts. My exploration has led me also to re-
evaluate the practice of ‘listening’, istimāʿ. Evidently, this is an ancient practice,
somewhat neglected in Ṣūfī writings and research. It is related to, but earlier
than, the renowned Ṣūfī samāʿ. As a practice, it requires the honing of the audi-
tory experience of ‘listening’ to Qurʾān recitations as well as to sacred texts at
 Introduction   15
large; in other words, it requires the aligning of the physical ears with the inner
ones in a state of undistracted openness. When this is done with sincere atten-
tiveness, the texts become enlivened and powerful, as though recited by the
Prophet or by the angel Gabriel or even by God Himself. In the process of such
an in-depth experience of istimāʿ, an understanding of the sacred texts is
revealed. This understanding does not depend on received traditional commen-
taries, but on the light of understanding that shines in the heart – hence, “under-
standing has countless faces”.

Centres, teachers and disciples

The various developments and writings outlined in this monograph took place in
both individual and collective spaces. When reviewing al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
life as it emerges from his writings, a twofold picture emerges: he seems to be
solitary, individualistic and, according to his own admission in one of his extant
letters, also critical of the dependence on ‘teachers’.54 But he also had social
interactions of sorts, as transpires from his correspondence with some of his
fellow men and from answers to questions addressed to him.55 Most interesting,
historically and phenomenologically, is his correspondence with two figures
associated with the ‘People of Blame’ (al-malāmatiyya, ahl al-malāma): Abū
ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, one of the most eminent teachers of the Malāmatīs of
Nīshāpūr, and Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl, a younger contemporary from Balkh asso-
ciated with both al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs. From the outset, in my attempt
to figure out the early landscape of early Islamic mysticism, the extant corres-
pondence between such early personalities became an important milestone for
me. Hence, in my dissertation, I have attentively studied al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
and the Malāmatiyya and have included also relevant edited texts. The whole of
the second part in this monograph, therefore, is devoted to Early Schools and
Teachers. In Chapter 4, I describe the teachers and disciples of the third/ninth-
century malāmatī centre in Nīshāpūr and their emphasis on ‘self-blame’
(malāma) as a practice leading to a constant watch over and control of the activity
of the nafs. I also discuss al-Tirmidhī’s critique of this practice. Based on the
compilations, I observe the interesting relationships between the Nīshāpūrī and
the Baghdādī centres. My main sources here are the extant correspondence
between al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and two malāmatī figures as well as “The Epistle
on the Malāmatiyya” by al-Sulamī (d. 1021).
In Chapter 6, I focus on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl.
Both lived in the north-eastern region of the Islamic world known as Transoxiana,
mostly during the third/ninth century. Extant letters addressed by al-Tirmidhī to
Ibn al-Faḍl show that they had known each other. They are also connected by
their acquaintance with certain of the Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr. The fact that both
had experienced harassment and opposition in their hometowns of Tirmidh and
Balkh has always intrigued me. Out of the sources, which leave much to be
­conjectured, I have tried to clarify the circumstances and nature of the opposi-
tion levelled against them in their respective hometowns. With the help of
16   Introduction
al-Tirmidhī’s works, I try to figure out why he was blamed for writing on the
rationale of the religious law (ʿilal al-sharīʿa) and why his work on this subject
could have been the cause for criticism, ordeal and perhaps even exile. This
exploration, too, helped me to fill in some lacunae in sketching the multifaceted
landscape during this early period of Islamic mysticism.

Epilogue: transition and inclusion

My understanding of a radical transition in the history of Islamic mysticism, her-
alding the eventual inclusion of the school of Nīshāpūr within the Ṣūfī school of
Baghdād, came when I started exploring al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb al-asrār
(= Edifying the Inmost Hearts). In Chapter 5, I explore this compilation, previ-
ously hardly utilized, which was compiled by a contemporary and compatriot of
al-Sulamī. I drew out of it new material for the understanding of the early
­mystical landscape, its developments and transitions. Focusing on an intriguing
section in the Tahdhīb concerning the correct performance of the ḥajj, I follow a
meaningful interaction between Ibn al-Munāzil of Nīshāpūr and al-Shiblī of
Baghdād. I find the narrative and their exchanges illuminating for the under-
standing of that significant historical moment in which mystical Islam became
‘Ṣūfism’.

Notes
  1 Sara Sviri (Burg), “The Mystical Psychology of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī”, thesis sub-
mitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, 2 vols (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University,
1979) (in Hebrew and Arabic).
  2 Uthman Yahya, “L’Oeuvre de Tirmiḏī (Essai Bibliographique)”, in Mélanges Louis
Massignon T. III (Damascus: Institut d’études Islamiques de l’université de Paris et
de l’Institut Français de Damas, 1957), 411–68; for a shorter but in some respects
more updated list, see Khālid Zahrī, Tajaliyyāt al-burhān wa-ḥaqāʾiq al-ʿirfān
­(Casablanca: Dār al-Rashād al-ḥadītha, 2009), 209–11.
  3 A.J. Arberry, “Notes on a Tirmidhī Manuscript”, Revista degli Studi Orientali
(Rome: 1940), 18: 315–27.
  4 For this extraordinary dream in full, see Badʾ shaʾn (also Buduww shaʾn)
(ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā), 28–31; also Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane (trans. and eds),
The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī (Richmond: Curzon Press 1996), 31–4.
 5 The theme of Seal of the Saints in both al-Tirmidhī and Ibn al-ʿArabī has been
explored by Michel Chodkiewicz in his remarkable study, Seal of the Saints:
Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn ʿArabī (Cambridge: The Islamic
Texts Society, 1993). For my own observations, see Chapter 10.
  6 See Sara Sviri, “Mysticism in Early Islam: The Pre-Compilations Phase”, in
­Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, ed. Herbert Berg (London: Routledge, 2018),
223–38.
  7 See, for example, Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The Formative Period ­(Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 87 (Table 4.1) et passim; also Alexander D. Knysh,
Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), Ch. 6: 116, 121, 130 et passim.
The term ‘manual’ seems more widespread among scholars than ‘compilation’. Neverthe-
less, my preference for ‘compilation’ stems from seeing this literature as primarily
 Introduction   17
focused on assemblages of sayings, anecdotes, hagiographical chronicles, terminologies
and, variably, also guidelines; all these, in my understanding, do not typify this genre in
toto as ‘guidelines’, as the term ‘manual’ may suggest.
  8 Louis Massignon, La Passion de Mansûr Hallâj. Martyr mystique de l’Islam exécuté
à bagdad le 26 mars 922. Étude d’histoire religieuse (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1922 and
later editions and reprints).
  9 Herbert Mason (trans.), The Passion of al-Hallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982); also Louis Massignon, The
Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Abridged edition, ed. and trans.
Herbert Mason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 1; also Herbert
Mason, Al-Hallaj, Curzon Sufi series (Richmond: Curzon, 1995).
10 Louis Massignon, Le Dīwān d’ál-Hallāj (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner,
1955).
11 Louis Massignon and Paul Kraus (eds), Akhbār al-Ḥallāj: recueil d’oraisons et
d’exhortations du martyr mystique de l’Islam Husayn Ibn Mansur Hallaj, eds Louis
Massignon and Paul Kraus (Paris: Vrin, 1957).
12 See also Paul Nwyia, “Nouveaux Fragments Inédits de Hallaj”, Melanges de
l’Université Saint-Joseph 42 (1966): 221–4.
13 Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of
Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, a.d 781–a.d 857 (London: Sheldon Press, 1935 and later
editions).
14 Al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. Margaret Smith (London: Luzac,
1940). For a later edition, see Kitāb al-Riʿāya, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ (Cairo: Dār al-
kutub al-ḥadītha, 1970).
15 Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Universität Bonn,
1961).
16 Kāmil M.M. ʿAwīḍa, Al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī al-ʿālim al-zāhid al-faqīh
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1994).
17 Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muḥāsibī
(London: Routledge, 2011).
18 Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qurʾānic
Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl at-Tustarī (d. 283/896) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980).
19 Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler (trans.), Tafsīr al-Tustarī (in English) (Louisville,
KY: Fons Vitae, 2011) (commissioned by Royal Aal al-Bayt, Institute for Islamic
Thought Amman, Jordan).
20 A.H. Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality, and Writings of al-Junayd: A Study of a
Third/Ninth Century Mystic with an Edition and Translation of his Writings (London:
Luzac & Co., E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, 1976).
21 Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, Tāj al-ʻārifīn, al-Junayd al-Baghdādī: al-aʻmāl al-kāmila (Cairo:
Dār al-Shurūq, 2004).
22 Roger Deladrière (ed. and trans.), Abū ‘l-Qāsim al-Junayd. Enseignement spiritual:
traités, lettres, oraisons et sentences (Paris: Sindbad, c.1983).
23 Al-Kharrāz, The Book of Truthfulness (Kitāb al-Ṣidq), ed. and trans. A.J. Arberry
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937); see also Abū Saʿīd Kharrāz, Al-Ṭarīq ilā
Allāh aw Kitāb al-Ṣidq, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd (Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-ḥadītha,
1963).
24 Al-Kharrāz, Rasāʾil (Baghdād: Maṭbaʿat al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-ʿirāqī, 1967).
25 Mīʿād Sharaf al-Dīn Kīlānī, Al-Īmām al-Kharrāz Shaykh al-fanāʾ wal-baqāʾ (Beirut:
Kitāb Nāshirūn, 2012).
26 Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai sur le lexique tech-
nique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970).
18   Introduction
27 Shaqīq al-Balkhī, “Ādāb al-ʿibādāt”, in Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musul-
mans: Šaqīq al-Balh̆ī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī, ed. Paul Nwyia (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq,
1973), 17–21.
28 For general information and references, see Jawid Mojaddedi, “Ḥallāj, Abu’l-Moḡiṯ
Ḥosayn”, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2003), 11/6, 589–92 also online www.iranicaon-
line.org/articles/hallaj-1; see also Chapter 9 in this monograph.
29 Note, however, ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson
(London: Luzac & Co., 1936), 130 and 132: “[… among the condemned sects are] the
Ḥallājīs, who have abandoned the sacred law and have adopted heresy”; but note also
al-Hujwīrī’s rather non-committal comment in his section on the Ḥulūlīs [those who
uphold the doctrine of ḥulūl, ‘incarnation of God in Man’ with which al-Ḥallāj was
accused): “In the compositions of al-Ḥallāj himself there is nothing but profound the-
osophy”. This comment surely supports my assessment.
30 See Chapter 9, “Faces of al-Ḥaqq”, [n. 19].
31 See Ibn Masarra, Kitāb khawāṣṣ al-ḥurūf in Min al-turāth al-falsafī li-Ibn Masarra
(d. 319 h), ed. M.K.I. Jaʿfar (Cairo: al-Majlis al-aʿlā lil-thaqāfa, 1982), 90, 104–5;
also Michael Ebstein and Sara Sviri, “The so-called Risālat al-ḥurūf (Epistle on
Letters) ascribed to Sahl al-Tustarī and Letter Mysticism in al-Andalus”, Journal
­Asiatique 299 (2011): 209–66.
32 Some scholars maintain an earlier, ninth-century date of the composition and redaction
of The Epistles – see a summary of the chronological question in Michael Ebstein,
Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Ismāʿīlī
tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 28–9, and especially note 86; see also Nader el-Bizri
(ed.), The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and their Rasāʾil: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008).
33 See Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-Risāla al-Jāmiʿa in Rasāʾil, ed. ʿĀrif Tāmir, Vol. 5 (Beirut:
Manshūrāt ʿUwaydāt, 1995), 140; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī: “wa-bi ‘l-ḥaqq khalaqa
[Allāh] al-samawāt wal-arḍ …”, Kitāb al-ḥuqūq, MS. Ismail Saib 1571, f. 181a, l. 7.
34 On al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi in Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141), see Yousef Casewit, The
Mystics of al-Andalus: Ibn Barrajān and Islamic Thought in the Twelfth Century
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 181–90; also Ebstein, Mysticism
and Philosophy in al-Andalus, 56, n. 86 et passim.
35 Note the prestigious current academic projects, for example, “Late Antiquity and
Early Islam: Continuity and Change in the Mediterranean and Arabia”. I cite from its
website (www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/research-projects/i/28/5428.html):
This project explores the dynamic transitional period from late antiquity to early
Islam in the Mediterranean basin (sixth to twelfth centuries). It brings together
scholars from four internationally renowned research institutions that are leading
centres in this field: (1) Leiden University, (2) the University of Oxford, (3) Prince-
ton University, and (4) the onderzoeksgroep UMR 8084 (Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and IV Sorbonne,
and École Pratique des Hautes Études). Research at these institutions is making it
increasingly clear that the conquests of Islam’s explosive first centuries, however
spectacular, crucially built upon an environment of long-standing contact and
exchange, and that Islam’s interaction with its subject populations continued to be
marked by accommodation, negotiation and cross-pollination long after the con-
quests. By the same token, nor did those areas reconquered after a period of Muslim
rule, such as al-Andalus, Sicily and the crusader kingdoms in the East, experience the
kind of abrupt and violent rupture with their direct past as has long been assumed. …
[T]he processes of Arabisation and Islamicisation, as well as the countervailing
developments in the Christian kingdoms, were more complex, variegated and
­longer-lasting than previously thought. Moreover, the histories of the different
regions under Muslim or Christian rule were more connected and integrated than
 Introduction   19
t­raditional studies – compartmentalised according to disciplinary and area divisions – has
suggested. By connecting scholars from these four institutions – historians, archae-
ologists, papyrologists, numismatists, working in the Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Latin
and Syriac, with their complementary disciplinary traditions, methodologies and
training – we hope to create a powerful new network that will accelerate research in
the field and significantly enhance our understanding of long-term change and con-
tinuity in the Mediterranean region as whole.
Note also “The Formation of Islam: The View from Below”, a research project at the
University of Leiden – www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-projects/
humanities/the-formation-of-islam-the-view-from-below#tab-1 – which acclaims:
“By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of those living under its rule, the
goal of this project is to understand the striking newness of Islamic society and its
debt to the diverse cultures it superseded”; see also Averil Cameron (ed.), Late Antiquity
on the Eve of Islam (London: Routledge, 2013).
36 See, for example, Gordon D. Newby, “Forgery”, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān; also
Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban
to Ibn Hazm (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), Chapters 6 and 7, 192–248.
37 See Bernd Radtke, “The Concept of Wilāya in Early Sufism”, in The Heritage of Sufism,
ed. Leonard Lewisohn, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 483–96; Radtke and O’Kane,
The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism; Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints.
38 See al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, Ch. 14, Section 7, 210–41.
39 See, for example, Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 60, cited in Chapter 7, [n. 48],
and the rest of the references concerning ‘the coincidence of opposites’ there.
40 See, for example, Muḥyī al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn al-ʿArabī,
al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār al-fikr, 1414/1994), Ch. 188 (fī maʿrifat
maqām al-ruʾyā), 12.
41 Ibid.
42 Cf., for example, the application of ṣūfī to Sahl al-Tustarī, in Böwering, The Mystical
Vision of Existence in Classical Islam; also Keeler and Keeler, Tafsīr al-Tustarī, 13.
43 This attitude is likewise echoed in the reluctance of later Ṣūfī authors to conclusively
derive the term ṣūfī from ‘wool’ but rather to offer a variety of optional derivations – see,
for example, Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf,
eds ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and ʿAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Damascus: Dār al-Īmān,
1407/1986), Ch. 1 “Why were the Ṣūfīs called Ṣūfīs”, 21ff.
44 For a detailed discussion and specific references, see notes 2–9 of Chapter 1 in this
monograph.
45 For an attempt at classifying mystical types in Islam, see Ebstein, Mysticism and
Philosophy in al-Andalus, 23–6.
46 For the term ahl al-ṣidq, see the opening paragraph in Shaqīq al-Balkhī, Ādāb
al-ʿibādāt, 17: “Inna ‘l-manāzil allatī yaʿmalu fīhā ahl al-ṣidq arbaʿ manāzil”; note also
al-Muḥāsibī, al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wa ‘l-jawāriḥ, ed. Khalīl ʿImrān al-Manṣūr
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2000), 67: “Having believed in a verse, the believing
seeker’s smallest amount of ‘sincerity’ is that he should understand it [as imparted to
him] by his Lord (aqall al-ṣidq min al-murīd al-muʾmin baʿda ‘l-īmān bi-l-āya an
yafhamahā ʿan rabbihi)” (my emphasis).
47 For the use of the grammatical feminine in relation to ‘self’ (nafs), see Chapter 2,
n. 41 and Chapter 12, n. 51.
48 For ‘abstinence’, ‘renunciation’, ‘asceticism’ – terms which are taken as equivalent to
zuhd, see Christopher Melchert, “Early Renunciants as Ḥadīth Transmitters”, The
Muslim World 92 (2002): 407–18.
49 This is notwithstanding the rich material concerning ‘practices’ (ādāb) in early
groups, as reflected in the writings of later compilers, such as Risālat al-malāmatiyya
of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī.
20   Introduction
50 Badʾ shaʾn, ed. ʿUthmān Yahya, §5, 17; cf. Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of
Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, §9, 20.
51 Badʾ shaʾn, ed. ʿUthmān Yahya, §7, 19; Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of Saint-
hood in Early Islamic Mysticism, §13, 21–2.
52 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Al-Masāʾil al-maknūna, ed. M.I. Al-Juyūshī (Cairo: Dār
al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 1980), 142–52.
53 On ʿilm al-awliyāʾ in connection with the knowledge of the secrets of language,
see Chapter 12, n. 31. For more on the theme of creative language, see Sara Sviri,
“KUN – the Existence-Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism: A Survey of Text in
the Creative Power of Language”, in The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of
Sound and Sign, eds Sergio La Porta and David Shulman (Leiden: Brill, 2007),
35–68.
54 On this correspondence, see Chapter 6, n. 36 and the references there.
55 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Jawāb al-masāʾil allatī saʾalahu ahl sarakhs ʿanhā
(“Answers to Questions about which the People of Sarakhs asked him”), in Drei
Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmiḏ, ed. Bernd Radtke (Beirut: Steiner, 1992),
137–68; also Al-Masāʾil in Sara Sviri PhD dissertation, Vol. 2, 4–72.
Part I
Asceticism and mysticism
(zuhd and taṣawwuf )
1 ‘Ṣūfism’
Reconsidering terms, definitions
and processes1

Terms and definitions: introductory notes

The examination of terms, definitions and processes pertaining to a given histor-
ical setting shows that the meaning of terms shift: for a period of time they may
stably point to a certain definition, but then, while the term remains, its defini-
tion shifts and is reapplied. In the minds of later observers, such semantic shifts
may cause perplexity and misperceptions. In the context of what follows, I shall
apply this observation to the early phases of what became known as Ṣūfism. I set
out to question widely accepted uses and definitions of terms pertaining to the
early period of Islamic mysticism and consequently to review paradigms
describing the processes that took place in this historical context. Two generally
accepted postulations are at the forefront of my inquiry: the first relates to the
alleged synonymity of ‘Ṣūfī’/’Sufism’ with ‘Islamic mystic’/’mysticism’ respec-
tively; the second relates to the popular paradigm according to which full-blown
Islamic mysticism (taṣawwuf) gradually evolved from an initial phase of
­‘asceticism’ (zuhd).
At the outset, one should note that the term ‘mysticism’ itself, as a universal
signifier, has been challenged by Islamicists and scholars of religions alike.
Omid Safi, for example, in a lengthy paper which deals with two eminent
­eleventh-century Persian Ṣūfīs,2 takes issue with the term ‘mysticism’ on two
grounds: on the one hand as a category which, like religion, is “not a given …
but … must be constructed” and is, therefore, “imagined”;3 and, on the other, as
a category which, being “steeped in a Western, Protestant Christian tradition”,
its “usefulness to studies of non-Christian (and even non-Protestant) mystics is
dubious”. Such a critical approach is hardly unique. The critique of mysticism as
a term and category, initially raised by scholars of religious studies, has been
endorsed by scholars of Islamic as well as of Jewish mysticism. It bears the clear
hallmark of the new school of historians of religion; in particular those post-Eliade
scholars who have questioned enduring paradigms within the study fields of
­religious phenomena and have attempted to “reconstruct a History of Religion”.4
However, it is not only terms such as ‘mysticism’ which “have fallen from
theoretical grace”.5 In the field of Islamic studies, attempts at dethroning old
terms have been coupled with the post-colonial and anti-orientalist critique,
24   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
which stems from the Saidian school of thought. Among scholars with such
­orientation, the use of the term ‘Ṣūfism’ has likewise been questioned. Carl
Ernst, to take one example, writes:

Since the very concept of Sufism is hotly contested among both Muslims and
non-Muslims today, it is important first of all to examine briefly the historical
development of the European study of Sufism … The modern concept of
Sufism emerged from a variety of European sources, including … Orientalist
constructions of Sufism as a sect with a nebulous relation to Islam … Outsider
terminology for Sufism stressed the exotic, the peculiar, and behavior that
diverges from modern European norms; in the context of colonialism, this
­terminology emphasized the dangers of fanatic resistance to European rule.6

Against these calls for a re-examination of previously accepted nomenclature,

my less radical historical inquiry of terms and their implications throws me,
whether I like it or not, into a sticky debate where contemporary scholars
­(‘outsiders’, according to the lingo) strive for a safer, more politically correct
ground upon which to build their theses and discourse.7 Why sticky? Because
what I have set out to articulate in this chapter is likewise motivated by a wish,
originating from critical observations, to re-examine terms and definitions which
customarily, and often uncritically, have been employed in the study of early
Islamic mysticism. Yet I have no quarrels with either of the terms ‘mysticism’
and ‘Ṣūfism’ in their own right. In the case of the former, I do not wish to invent
a neologism to replace ‘mysticism’; neither do I see much point in substituting it
with ‘spirituality’, ‘piety’, ‘devotion’, or similar alternatives. True, both Arabic
and Hebrew lack a home-grown term for this discipline – and scholars of
­(so-called) mystical texts and phenomena in these fields are, no doubt, aware of
this. It should also be noted that modern Arabic, in rendering what in European
languages is named ‘mysticism’, has been using the term taṣawwuf generically;
thus, Jewish mysticism is rendered al-taṣawwuf al-yahūdī, Hindu mysticism
al-taṣawwuf al-hindī and so on. However, regardless of its genealogy and deri-
vation, and in spite of its terminological ambiguities, I consider ‘mysticism’ a
useful term for indicating certain human attitudes vis-à-vis the sacred and the
extraordinary. Therefore, I shall assume the understanding that mysticism is a
current within religions and cultures, associated with voluntary efforts, usually
beyond and in addition to traditional religious practices, aimed at gaining an
intensified experience of the sacred. A mystic, by the same token, is an indi-
vidual desirous of such an experience, confident (or, at least, hopeful) that it can
be gained during his/her lifespan and willing to commit him-/herself to the
efforts whereby such an experience can be gained. Admittedly, this is no more
than a basic, working definition offered mainly from the perspective of the
Islamic material at hand; I have no claim of offering an all-inclusive definition of
mysticism. So much for mysticism.
Turning my attention now to the terms ‘Ṣūfism’ and ‘Ṣūfī’, I ponder: Can
the above characterization of mystics and mysticism apply also to Ṣūfīs and
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   25
Ṣūfism – in other words, were Ṣūfīs mystics? Here a suspension of judgement
is required vis-à-vis the textual evidence: if the terms apply to Ṣūfīs and
Ṣūfism as they have become known since approximately the second half of the
third/ninth century onwards, then yes, Ṣūfism is, without doubt, a mystical
current within Islam, one that revolves around the search, preferably within
some communal affiliation and under the supervision of a master, of an inten-
sified personal experience of God; and, yes, a Ṣūfī is someone who willingly
strives, by means of special practices – preferably under the guidance of an
expert master and within a somewhat intimate community – to achieve such an
experience. Thus, according to the Ṣūfī lore, as developed and written from
the second half of the third/ninth century onwards, supererogatory practices
(nawāfil, ṭāʿāt) such as fasts, prayers, vigils, remembrances, periods of seclu-
sion and contemplation, should be diligently carried out alongside a careful
observation of the obligatory religious rituals (ʿibādāt). The exertion of volun-
tary efforts is motivated by the understanding that efforts are indispensable for
attaining a here-and-now experience of the divine spheres. From this per-
spective Ṣūfīs are, indeed, mystics. However, if my attention is directed
towards certain individuals or groups in earlier phases of Islamic history
(mainly the first and second half of the third/ninth century) to whose name the
chroniclers attached the label al-ṣūfī, then the answer is not at all straight-
forward, for it turns out that not all Ṣūfīs were mystics and that not all mystics
were named Ṣūfīs.
It is from this perspective that I shall examine the term Ṣūfism and its cog-
nates; not due to political correctness nor from a malaise with the ‘-ism’
ending, but because of the semantic shifts and cultural adaptations which this
term underwent in the course of its historical development. I wish, therefore,
to revisit the primary sources in order to tease out of them answers to these
questions. These answers I shall weigh vis-à-vis previous scholarly evalu-
ations in an attempt to offer new interpretative options. This is not to say that
the scholarly works referred to above do not engage with primary sources.
However, in my view, much thought has been invested in projecting
­culturally dependent postmodern models and constructs of discourse upon the
relevant material, at the expense of revisiting the material itself. Indeed, for
the scholar, one advantage that primary sources have is that they are free
from the constraints of either following or rejecting any sets of time-bound
dogmas and methodologies such as counter-Orientalism, Post-colonialism,
Post-enlightenment and the like. One may argue, as some scholars do, that the
term Ṣūfism, or even the term Islam, are an orientalist and colonial invention –
in the same way that Hinduism, Buddhism or Judaism are8 – but one must
concede that the Arabic term taṣawwuf and its cognates ṣūfī and ṣūfiyya, from
which Ṣūfism directly derives, are attested to and self-consciously discussed
in primary, medieval sources, which have consequently constituted Ṣūfī
­literature. In other words, while I, too, aim at readdressing terms pertaining to
Islamic mysticism, I do not wish to align with contemporary positions but
rather to address questions arising from primary sources that concern the
26   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
shifting meanings and usages of terms such as Ṣūfī during the formative
period of Islam.

Wool-wearing Ṣūfīs: ascetics rather than mystics

Writing about groups and movements that have made up Islamic culture in its
formative period requires a careful examination of the terms and the definitions
by which they have been identified. Linguistically, it is apparent that the term
Sufi (and in Arabic al-ṣūfī) derives from ṣūf, wool.9 Indeed, there were people in
Early Islam, as well as in Late Antiquity, who wore coarse woollen garments as
a token of their ascetical inclinations, allegedly in imitation of prophets and holy
men such as Elijah or John the Baptist. Wearing coarse woollen garments by
way of exhibiting aversion to worldly luxuries is a well-established custom in
classical literature in Arabic. For example, it is related that the poet Abū
al-ʿAtāhiyya went through a ‘spiritual’ crisis and consequently stopped writing
poetry, except ascetical (fī ’l-zuhd). In his withdrawal, we are told, he took to
wearing wool.10 Chronicles of the first centuries of Islam have preserved refer-
ences to several individuals who were nicknamed al-ṣūfī. There is no indication
that these individuals exhibited mystical features. For example, Abū ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-ṣūfī in Alexandria, c.200/815, led a group of moralistic political
dissidents, who rose against the local governor. The group, according to the
chroniclers, was named al-ṣūfiyya.11 Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā, a
descendent of ʿUmar b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, was nicknamed ibn al-ṣūfī al-ʿAlawī.
In 253/867, he rebelled against Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn in Upper Egypt.12 From a
different region comes the example of Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim, an Alidi Zaydi
leader who, in 219/834, rebelled against the Ṭāhirid governor in Juzjān. He, too,
was nicknamed al-ṣūfī. Writing about him in Maqātil al-ṭālibiyyīn, Abū al-Faraj
al-Iṣfahānī states:

His kunyā was Abū Jaʿfar but the general public nicknamed him al-ṣūfī
as he was constantly wearing white woolen garments.13 He was one of
the renowned men of learning, jurisprudence, religion, asceticism and
fine conduct. In his [theological] orientation he accepted the doctrine of
Justice and Unity and he subscribed to the views of the Jārūdiyya
Zaydis …14

The fact that Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim followed the theological doctrine of

al-ʿAdl wal-tawḥīd associated with the Muʿtazila is worth noting, especially
since another interesting example of individuals who were collectively named
Ṣūfīs is the so-called ṣūfiyyat al-Muʿtazila. We should note that the term ṣūfiyyat
al-Muʿtazila presents a semantic quandary: not only does it bring together two
denominations which are commonly perceived as antagonistic to one another,
but there is no certainty as to what each of these denominations in its own right
had denoted at the outset. In other words, though we customarily identify
Muʿtazila with a theological, rationalist movement within Islam and ṣūfiyya with
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   27
the almost antithetical mystical movement within it – we cannot be sure that
these were the defining features of the two denominations to begin with. The use
of the term ṣūfiyya in this quandary requires attention and I shall therefore
attempt to examine it at some length.
Considering (or, rather, reconsidering) the early definition and use of the term
Muʿtazila, Sarah Stroumsa explores the semantic and practical contents of the
verb iʿtazala and concludes that it denotes abstinence “from sexual activity,
from worldly pleasures or, more generally, from sin.” She points out that
“[t]here can be little doubt as to the meaning of the term Muʿtazila when applied
to ʿAmr [ibn ʿUbayd]’s disciples” and concludes that “asceticism was their most
striking characteristic. They were given the term ‘Muʿtazila’ in reference of their
pious asceticism, and they were content with this term.”15 What is particularly
relevant is another historical conclusion articulated by Stroumsa, namely, that
“by the first quarter of the second Islamic century ascetics, or even loosely
organized groups of ascetics, were called Muʿtazila.” Hence the early followers
of Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ and ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd “were Muʿtazilte before the existence
of a Muʿtazila as we know it …”16 Such an understanding, if endorsed, reduces
our perplexity vis-à-vis the odd coupling of muʿtazila and ṣūfiyya, at least in so
far that the muʿtazila component may allude to an ascetical streak in this denom-
ination rather than to, strictly speaking, a theological or political one. It also
­confirms the observation stated above that names remain while their significa-
tions may shift.
Where do we find this combined denomination ṣūfiyyat al-muʿtazila? It is
attested to in an early heresiographical work which had been attributed to
al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (d. 293/906),17 but was probably penned by Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb
(d. 236/850).18 According to this text (titled by the editor Kitāb uṣūl al-niḥal),
which deals with the question of the necessity of rulership (imāma, Imamate,
Caliphate), the group thus named maintained that rulership was not absolutely
necessary. Patricia Crone defines them therefore as “anarchists”.19 However, in
the short paragraph dedicated to them in the Ps. Nāshiʾ text, it is also mentioned
that they objected to paid labour and held the principle known as taḥrīm
al-makāsib.20 Indeed, Faḍl al-Ḥadathī, one of those mentioned there, is criticized
by Samʿānī (d. 562/1166) for his extreme, Manichaen-type asceticism.21 As for
the principle of taḥrīm al-makāsib, forbidding paid labour, we find a vigorous
critique of those who hold it by al-Jāḥiẓ in Kitāb al-Ḥayawān. He objects to
those who, out of laziness and vanity, falsely assume an ascetical appearance
(nusk) by abstaining from work, living off charity and “forbidding paid labour”.
While criticizing this type of parasitic, show-off behaviour, al-Jāḥiẓ remarks on
its similarity with the conduct of some Christian scroungers who feign monasti-
cism by wearing wool in order to gain social favours and admiration. Al-Jāḥiẓ
names a Muslim beggar of this kind ṣūfī.22 Al-Jāḥiẓ’s ­criticism is by no means
unique; it is in line with the disapproval levelled by various second–third/
eighth–ninth-century authors against wool-wearing and other extroverted
­ascetical behaviour. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī offers one such example when he
compares what he considers the false asceticism of his time with the false
28   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
monasticism in the wake of Jesus’s death.23 Earlier and closer to al-Jāḥiẓ’s
hometown of Baṣra, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) reputedly rebuked his dis-
ciple, Farqad al-Sabakhī, for his show-offish wool wearing.24 Suleiman Ali
Mourad, who wrote an overall remarkable study on al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, ­discusses
the fact that Ṣūfīs, as well as their opponents, claimed an affiliation to al-Ḥasan.
He adduces from Ibn Saʿd’s (d. 230/845) Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kubrā an anecdote
that, according to Mourad, allegedly shows how “[t]he anachronistic association
of al-Ḥasan with mysticism was not limited to the followers of the mystical
movement. Their opponents made use of him to utter condemnations of mystics
and the mystical tradition.”25 According to this early source, Mourad argues,

the ṣūfis (those who wear wool) were once mentioned in the presence of
al-Ḥasan, and he described them by saying: ‘They shelter arrogance in their
hearts but show modesty in their dress. By God, each one of them is
prouder in his [coarse] garment than the owner of the shawl in his shawl.’26

Now, the term ṣūfī does not at all appear in Ibn Saʿd’s text. It is Mourad who
adds it by way of offering an identification – obviously erroneous – of those
whom Ibn Saʿd describes simply as “those who wear wool” (alladhīna
yalbasūna al-ṣūf). Evidently, Mourad (and he is not the only one) confused the
ascetic wool-wearers – frowned upon by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī and others – with Ṣūfīs in the conventional, though later, sense of
mystics. As the textual evidence shows, “those who wear wool” were indeed
sometimes nicknamed “ṣūfīs,”, but they are not to be identified with the later
mystics thus named, nor should the critique levelled against their extrovert
ascetical behaviour be confused with any critique which might have been
­levelled later against the mystics. To do so is, indeed, anachronistic, but not in
the sense that Mourad wishes to convey (i.e. an anachronism on the part of those
who objected to the mystics); rather, the anachronism is on the part of Mourad,
since before the consolidation of Ṣūfī “mystical” identity, the term ṣūfī designated
plainly a wool-wearing ascetic, not a mystic.
Let us go back now to the ṣūfiyyat al-muʿtazila. As far as I am aware, most
studies which mention this group seem, at least by implication, somewhat hesi-
tant concerning the juxtaposition of Ṣūfīs with Muʿtazilite. Though van Ess,
Stroumsa, Crone and others agree that the second–third/eighth–ninth-century
ṣūfiyyat al-Muʿtazila were, for all intents and purposes, ascetics, they do not
sound too sure about the ṣūfiyya component and seem to suggest a certain affin-
ity with mysticism. Among these scholars one should also mention Florian
­Sobieroj, who has explicitly tried to follow possible affiliations between a few
Muʿtazilites and later Ṣūfīs.27 I am inclined to take a less equivocal position and
argue that the group or individuals referred to as ṣūfiyyat al-Muʿtazila were thus
nicknamed because of their extreme ascetical and moralistic – sometimes to the
point of rebelling against rulers – features which, among other things, mani-
fested also in wool-wearing. It is also most probable that their extreme stance as
regards paid labour and worldly possessions went hand-in-hand with their
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   29
radical political, moralistic and theological attitudes.28 By way of exhibiting
their extreme aversion to worldly luxuries they, like other groups and indi-
viduals, wore coarse woollen garments and were consequently labelled, often in
criticism, ṣūfī and ṣūfiyya. Historically, these early Ṣūfīs reflect a phase in the
social and religious development of Early Islam in which individuals as well as
groups were, knowingly or unknowingly, engaged in ascetical practices which
have been practised throughout Late Antiquity, especially by Christian and
Manichaean monks and ascetics.
This said, one should note that the social and historical picture becomes more
compound when we encounter in the chronicles individuals or groups with the
label al-ṣūfī attached to their names but without the harsh ascetical characteristics
exhibited by most of the groups and individuals discussed above. Studying the
early mystical schools of Baghdād and Nīshāpūr, I was surprised to find in Abū
al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Zayd al-Bayhaqī’s Lubāb al-ansāb an important but seldom con-
sulted Shīʿī genealogical text, in which several eminent Alids were nicknamed
al-ṣūfī.29 Apparently, in Nīshāpūr, the medieval capital of Khurāsān, resided a
Shīʿī community consisting mostly of descendants of martyred Zaydī rebels who,
during the second/eighth century, had been forced to exile there by the ʿAbbasid
Caliphs or by their governors. By the middle of the third/ninth century, they seem
to have become a wealthy and respected community in Nīshāpūr.30
Interestingly, in contradistinction to the criticism levelled against the extreme
ascetics discussed above, these Alid ‘Ṣūfīs’ are presented in a laudable, even
glorifying way: those among them who, due to wearing wool, were nicknamed
Ṣūfīs, are presented as pious leaders and as paragons of virtue, sincerity and
piety. It should be noted that the wool garment worn by several of them is said
to have been white.
What to make of the discrepancy in the attitudes presented by the source
material? This is an interesting question that should be further studied and dis-
cussed in terms of the history of social and religious groups in Early Islam,
taking into account, needless to stress, the biases of the chroniclers. It is pos-
sible, however, to conjecture that the wearing of white woollen garments by
community leaders reflects a practice which differs from the wearing of coarse
woollen garments by austere ascetics.31 The white woollen garment seems to
carry different iconic connotations than the undyed, rough wool of extreme
ascetics. Dāwūd, that is, the biblical David, is said to have dressed his son
Sulaymān (Solomon) in a dress made of white wool as was the custom of the
prophets.32 According to a tradition attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the mark
(sīmāʾ) of the angels during the Battle of Badr was white wool on the sides of
their horses and their tails.33 That in post-Biblical Jewish circles white garments
denoted dignity and piety is borne out by commentaries to Ecclesiastes 9:7–9:

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart;
for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and
let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest
all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun,
30   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor
which thou takest under the sun.34 (emphasis mine).

Clearly, this passage advocates a way of life which has nothing ascetical about
it; rather, according to the Rabbinic tradition, the white garments are understood
as a token of a virtuous, blameless religious, but not ascetical, life.35
It is, therefore, possible that we can discern in the wool-wearing of the early
Middle Ages residues of two different late antique practices: on the one hand,
the rough and undyed woollen garment which, in Early Islam, shows the persis-
tence of late antique Christian or Manichaean ascetical and monastic practices;
and, on the other hand, the white woollen garment which reflects the continuation
of late antique icons of leadership, religious rank and exemplary conduct in reli-
gious communities. In the socio-historical context of Early Islam, the different
cultural connotations of white woollen garments vis-à-vis the rough undyed
woollen habit should be further studied. However, even at this stage of research,
it is my contention that the possibility that in the first centuries of Islam the label
‘Ṣūfī’ had been attached to two different social types – the rough-living, harsh
and controversial ascetic on the one hand, and the honourable, pious, well-to-do
religious leader on the other – should be taken into consideration when this label
crops up in literature.36
Hence, based on the textual evidence culled from a variety of sources, it can
be ascertained that the label al-ṣūfī, in its earliest appearance, did not refer to
mystics at all, but rather, often with criticism and derision, to people whose code
of dress exhibited extroverted ascetical practices coupled with radical moral-
political attitudes. In a different ‘language game’, however, it seems that the
same label was also applied to individuals of a Shīʿī affiliation, who were
­honoured for their dignity, leadership, piety and virtue. The title Ṣūfī attached to
Shīʿī personalities may also explain why individuals such as the sixth Imam
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (148/765), or his alleged disciple, the alchemist Jābir ibn
Ḥayyān, were included in lists of early mystics in the Ṣūfī manuals and even in
some silsilas.37 This discussion may also explain why we find among Muslim
mystics a reluctance to accept that the term ṣūfī, by which they were eventually
identified, derives from ṣūf, wool. Most of them preferred to connect it with
other Arabic roots, which include the consonants ṣ and f, such as ṣafāʾ (purity),
ṣafwa (the best choice), al-ṣaff al-awwal (the first row in prayer, or of the
angels) or ahl al-ṣuffa (the People of the Bench).38

From asceticism to mysticism?

In descriptions of the historical development of Islamic mysticism, it has
become paradigmatic to postulate a transition from an early phase of asceticism
(zuhd) to the full-fledged mysticism of the Ṣūfī way. This diachronic paradigm
has become, in the words of Christopher Melchert, “a scholarly common-
place”.39 Indeed, the list of scholars subscribing to this paradigm includes
Goldziher,40 Nicholson,41 Massignon,42 and most of the more recent scholars in
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   31
this field. In fact, this ­outlook can be traced down to the fourteenth-century
historian Ibn Khaldūn. In his Muqaddima, in the chapter devoted to “The Science
of Ṣūfism” (ʿilm al-taṣawwuf), Ibn Khaldūn presents a developmental outlook
on Islamic mysticism; the origin of the Ṣūfī system, he claims, is to be sought in
the devotional and ascetical conduct of the first pious generations. Then, in the
second century and later, when interest in worldly things increased and people
became drawn to this world, those who had kept to the early pious and ascetical
ways took to wearing wool, in contradistinction to the luxurious garments worn
by the worldly and haughty rich. Hence, these people became known as ṣūfiyya
and mutaṣawwifa. Subsequently, they became distinguished also by their
­discernment of special methods of exertion and disciplined training (mujāhada,
riyāḍa). For those who practised them, these methods resulted in a gradual
climb (taraqqī) through mystical stages and stations (maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl), as
well as in the acquisition of exceptional mystical perception (dhawq). These
­culminated in revelation and insight into divine truths (kashf, idrāk ḥaqāʾiq
al-wujūd).43
As we have seen, in the second/eighth–third/ninth centuries there were,
indeed, groups and individuals associated with wearing woollen garments,
mostly out of ascetical and world-denying leanings, who were nicknamed Ṣūfīs.
But were these ascetics proto-mystics? Were they, or their immediate successors –
communally or individually – necessarily interested in, or involved with, the
special methods described by Ibn Khaldūn, which, according to him, were pre-
requisites for developing mystical prowess and for attaining mystical aware-
ness? Can we accept the postulated transition from asceticism to mysticism at
face value? In reality, the neat linear paradigm suggested by Ibn Khaldūn and
adopted by modern scholarship obscures a much more complex picture.
Previous research, especially of early mystics of Khurāsān such as al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī and of the early mystical schools such as the Malāmatiyya of
Nīshāpūr, has shown that the tapestry of early Islamic mysticism is more varie-
gated than this paradigm allows for.44 In the second and third centuries of
Islamic history, there were mystics, such as al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, who were not
named Ṣūfīs45 and there were those named Ṣūfīs who were not mystics. There is
no clear evidence for the ‘transition’ implied by Ibn Khaldūn and which scholars
have picked up. In fact, mysticism in Islam existed before it became known as
Ṣūfism. As for ascetical tendencies, they had existed in Islam from very early on
and continued to exist alongside Ṣūfism, independently, when the latter became
established as Islamic mysticism. From the perspective of my own studies, it
seems evident that diachronic, linear paradigms are not sufficient for describing
and explaining the complexity of religious life in Islam during its formative
period. Both ascetical and mystical movements in Early Islam exhibit complex
socio-historical structures which have been overlooked in the adoption of the
simplistic transition theory. The historical paradigm offered by Ibn Khaldūn
and his followers requires, therefore, a more critical scrutiny, to be followed
by ­systematic attempts at reconstructing its versatile components – historical,
sociological, phenomenological and comparative.
32   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
In conclusion, it is evident that asceticism and mysticism represent two
s­ eparate and independent trends within Islam, at times at odds with one another
and at times interwoven into one another. Each trend has created its own literary
corpora, its own social affiliations, its own theoretical paradigms and its own
ethical and behavioural codes. In fact, each one of these trends is itself versatile
and can be broken down into various branches and typologies which may, or
may not, be associated with one another. One can speak of ‘transition’ (or
‘transformation’) in individual cases, such as in the case of Ibrāhīm ibn Adham,
who went through a spiritual transformation from a wealthy young prince into
an ascetic and mystic seeker,46 or in the case of the poet Abū al-ʿAtāhiyya men-
tioned above, who, after a rather hedonistic existence, took to an ascetical way
of life. However, a historical and paradigmatic ‘transition’ from asceticism into
mysticism seems to me a fallacy.
It is also evident that themes and practices of mystical and ascetical natures,
which existed in late antique traditions – Hellenistic, Judaic, Christian, Gnostic
and others – survived in Islam after its rise. While developing within Islam as
indigenous systems, they retained some of their late antique traces. The study of
the formative period of Islamic mysticism should, at this stage, take these givens
into account and reconsider them from historical as well as from comparative
perspectives. In practice, this means re-venturing into and re-opening study
fields which have been neglected in the study of Islam since the second half of
the twentieth century.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Geneviève Gobillot and Jean-
Jacques Thibon (eds), Les maîtres Soufis et leurs disciples: IIIe–Ve siècles de l’hégire
IXe–XIe S.: enseignement, formation et transmission (Beirut: Institut français du
Proche-Orient, 2012), 17–34.
  2 Omid Safi, “Bargaining with Baraka: Persian Sufism, ‘Mysticism’, and Pre-Modern
Politics”, The Muslim World 90 (2000): 259–87.
  3 See ibid., 260ff.; for the ubiquitous adjective ‘imagined’, see. Jonathan Z. Smith,
Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago, IL: Chicago University
Press, 1982). This adjective seems by now rather laden with references to cultural
constructions such as ‘statehoods’, ‘territories’, ‘communities’, etc. – cf. Benedict
Anderson’s influential study Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); cf. also the likewise influential
Saidian concept of ‘imaginative geography’. See also the survey of and responses to
current opinions, Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), Introduction, 13ff. et passim.
  4 See the seminal works of Jonathan Z. Smith, for example, Relating Religion: Essays
in the Study of Religion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 28 et
passim; see also Safi, “Bargaining with Baraka”, 281, n. 7. For an informative genea-
logical survey of the term ‘mysticism’, see Leigh E. Schmidt, “The Making of
Modern ‘Mysticism’ ”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71 (2003): 273–
302, where, in the opening lines of his paper, the author speaks of the “fall of mysti-
cism from theoretical grace”, and where further on (274), summing up current schol-
arly attitudes towards mysticism, he writes: “A century after [William] James made it
a favored construct in his religion of solitary epiphanies, it is safe to say that
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   33
‘­ mysticism’ is a category in disrepair, sunk in the disrepute of its multiple occlu-
sions.” However, Schmidt also cautions: “The process of mysticism’s reinvention in
departicularized form needs itself to be particularized and seen in its own historical
complexity.” For a critique of the use of ‘mysticism’ in the field of Jewish Studies,
see Boaz Huss, “Jewish Mysticism in the University: Academic Study or Theological
Practice”, Zeek: A Journal of Jewish Thought and Culture (December 2007):

Mysticism is not a universal category that should be used as a basis of academic

study; rather, it is a Christian theological term, that was used in the modern period
due to political or theological motivations – in order to classify and categorize phe-
nomena from non-Christian cultures.
See also Boaz Huss, “The Theologies of Kabbalah Research”, Modern Judaism 34
(2014): 3. For a rejection of the term ‘mysticism’ in relation to Ṣūfism on somewhat
different grounds, see William C. Chittick, “Mysticism and Discipline”, in Faith and
Practice in Islam: Three Thirteenth Century Ṣūfi Texts (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992),
168ff. See also Simon Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden, Elected or Rejected: Sufism as
‘Islamic Esotericism’?” in Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 29(2) (2018), 145–65.
  5 See Schmidt, “The Making of Modern Mysticism”.
  6 Carl Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism (Boston, MA: Shambala Publications,
1997), 2–3.
  7 The fact that this is not just about semantics can be gleaned from Carl Ernst’s
­statement: “[… S]cholars who work on non-European studies, particularly in relation
to cultures of the Middle East, sooner or later find that their studies have political
relevance”, see Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism, 2.
  8 Cf., for example, Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism, xiv:
Historically, the term Islam was introduced into European languages in the early
nineteenth century […] as an explicit analogy with the modern Christian concept of
religion; in this respect, Islam was just as much a neologism as the terms H
­ induism
and Buddhism were.
  9 For reservations of this etymology, raised by Ṣūfī authors, see n. 38; see also Chapter
3, [nn 3–4].
10 See, for example, Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 1992), Vol. 4, 33, 113–14; cf. the anecdote narrated by Muḥammad b.
Umayya in Vol. 12, 171: ‫ﻓﺪﺧﻞ ﺃﺑﻮ ﺍﻟﻌﺘﺎﻫﻴﺔ ﻭﻗﺪ ﺗﻨﺴﻚ ﻭﻟﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﻭﺗﺮﻙ ﻗﻮﻝ ﺍﻟﺸﻌﺮ ﺍﻻ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺰﻫﺪ‬
‫ ﻳﻠﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﻭﻻ ﻳﺄﻛﻞ ﺍﻟﻠﺤﻢ‬...‫ ﺭﺟﻼ ﻋﺎﺑﺪﺍ ﻣﻌﺘﺰﻻ‬...‫ ;ﻛﺎﻥ‬cf. note 31 below; see also Muḥammad
b. Saʿd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1957–1968), Vol. 5, 305, concerning
Ziyād ibn Abī Ziyād: ‫ يلبس الصوف وال يأكل اللحم‬...‫ رجال عابدا معتزال‬...‫كان‬
11 ‫ ﻓﺘﺮﺃﺱ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺭﺟﻞ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻳﻘﺎﻝ ﻟﻪ ﺃﺑﻮ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺮﺣﻤﻦ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ‬...‫ – ﻭﻅﻬﺮﺕ ﺑﺎﻹﺳﻜﻨﺪﺭﻳﺔ ﻁﺎﺋﻔﺔ ﻳﺴﻤﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻴﺔ‬see
Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Kindī, Kitāb al-wulāt wa-kitāb al-quḍāt (Beirut: Maṭbaʿat
al-ābāʾ al-yasūʿiyyīna, 1908), 162; see also Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawāʿiẓ
wa-l-iʿtibār bi-dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Ori-
entale, 1911–1923), Vol. 3, 182–3. For the self-imposed role of overseeing the right
moral conduct in public, taken on by some radical groups, see Michael Cook, Com-
manding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), esp. 461.
12 Al-Kindī, Kitāb al-wulāt, 213; cf. ʿAlī b. Zayd al-Bayhaqī, Lubāb al-ansāb
­wa-l-alqāb wa-l-aʿqāb (Qumm: Maktabat al-marʿashī, 1410 h/1989), 276: According
to this source, Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar was named al-Ṣūfī as
“he joined the circles of the Sufis”: ‫ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺩﺍﺧﻼ ﻓﻲ ﺣﻠﻖ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻴﺔ‬. This Yaḥyā seems to be
the grandfather of the above Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad.
13 On wearing white woollen garments, see notes 31–6 below; on Alids, who were
­nicknamed al-ṣūfī, see note 37 below.
 34   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
14 See Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Maqātil al-ṭālibiyyīn (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub
al-ʿarabiyya, 1949), 577–8, concerning Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim, an Alid who, in 834,
revolted against the‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ‬ Ṭāhirids‫ﺗﻠﻘﺒﻪ‬in‫ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ ﻭﻛﺎﻧﺖ‬...‫ ﻭﻳﻜﻨﻰ ﺃﺑﺎ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬... ‫ﻭﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺳﻢ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ‬
Juzjān:
‫ﺍﻟﻌﻠﻢ‬
‫ﺍﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﻌﻠﻢ‬
‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻫﻞ‬
‫ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﻦ‬
‫ ﻭﻛﺎﻥ‬،‫ﺍﻻﺑﻴﺾ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ‬
،‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﺍﻻﺑﻴﺾ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺜﻴﺎﺏ ﻣﻦ‬
‫ﻟﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺜﻴﺎﺏ‬
‫ﻳﺪﻣﻦ ﻟﺒﺲ‬
‫ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﺪﻣﻦ‬
‫ﻻﻧﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ‬ ; see ‫ﺃﺑﺎ‬
‫ﻭﻛﺎﻧﺖ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻣﺔ ﺗﻠﻘﺒﻪ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻻﻧﻪ‬. ...‫ﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬ also
‫ ﻭﻳﻜﻨﻰ‬... ‫ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ‬
.‫ ﻭﻳﺮﻯ ﺭﺃﻱ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﺪﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﺠﺎﺭﻭﺩﻳﺔ‬...‫ ﻭﺍﻟﻔﻘﻪ ﻭﺍﻟﺪﻳﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﺰﻫﺪ ﻭﺣﺴﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺬﻫﺐ‬Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, Sharḥ
nahj al-balāgha (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1959–1964), Vol. 15, 291;
see also notes 32, 36, 37 below. On the Jārūdiyya, see also Chapter 5 in this mono-
graph, [n. 41].
15 Sarah Stroumsa, “The Beginnings of the Muʿtazila Reconsidered”, Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 271f.; see also the references to I. Goldziher
and others who highlight the ascetical characteristics behind the term ‘Muʿtazila’,
ibid., 272, nn 46–7. An emphatic and sympathetic reference to Goldziher’s views
as regards the ascetical nature of the early Muʿtazila is also made by Osman
Aydinli in his paper “Ascetic and Devotional Elements in the Muʿtazilite
Tradition: The Ṣūfi Muʿtazilite”, The Muslim World 97 (2007): 174–89, and see
ibid., 177f.
16 See Stroumsa, “The Beginnings of the Muʿtazila Reconsidered”, 273; for other inter-
pretations and derivations of the term in primary sources, see ibid., 276ff.; for the
possible political implications of the term, see ibid., 280ff.
17 See Josef van Ess (ed. and annotator), Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Zwei
Werke des Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (g. 293 h.) (Beirut: Franz Steiner 1971), Arabic text,
§83, 50, ll. 5–7, German section, 43f.; see also J. van Ess, “Political Ideas in Early
Islamic Religious Thought”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28 (2001):
162–3.
18 For the possible identification of the author, see van Ess, Frühe muʿtazilitische Häre-
siographie, 157, n. 35 and the reference to Wilferd Madelung’s review: “Frühe
muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Das Kitāb al-Uṣūl des Ğaʿfar b. Ḥarb?”, Der Islam 57
(1980): 220ff., in which Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb is suggested as the probable author.
19 See Patricia Crone, “Ninth-Century Muslim Anarchists”, Past and Present 167
(2000): 3–28, and especially, for our discussion, 4, 12–13, 23.
20 See van Ess, Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, German section, 43–4.
21 See ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad al-Samʿānī, Al-Ansāb (Beirut: Dār al-jinān, 1988),
‫ ﻭﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺗﻌﺮﻳﺾ ﻣﻨﻬﻤﺎ‬...Vol.
،‫ﻧﻜﺎﺣﻪ‬2,‫ﻓﻲ‬187:
‫ ﻭﻗﺪ ﺫﻛﺮﺕ ﺑﻌﺾ ﻣﻘﺎﻟﺘﻬﻢ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺨﺎﺑﻄﻴﺔ ﻭﻛﺎﻧﺎ ﻳﻄﻌﻨﺎﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻨﺒﻲ ﺻﻠﻰ ﷲ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭﺳﻠﻢ‬... ‫ﻭﺍﻟﺤﺪﺛﻴﺔ ﻁﺎﺋﻔﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺘﺰﻟﺔ‬
... ‫ ﻭﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺗﻌﺮﻳﺾ ﻣﻨﻬﻤﺎ ﺑﻤﺬﺍﻫﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﺎﻧﻮﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﺬﻳﻦ ﺩﻋﻮﺍ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺗﺮﻙ ﻧﻜﺎﺡ ﺍﻟﻨﺴﺎء‬... ،‫ﻌﻨﺎﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻨﺒﻲ ﺻﻠﻰ ﷲ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭﺳﻠﻢ ﻓﻲ ﻧﻜﺎﺣﻪ‬
22 See ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-ḥayawān (Cairo: Maktabat M. al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī,
،ً‫ﻼ‬
1938–1945),
‫ ﻭﻋﺎﺩ ﺳﺎﺋ‬،‫ﺍﻟﻤﻜﺎﺳﺐ‬Vol. ‫ﺗﺤﺮﻳﻢ‬ ‫ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻓﺴﻼً ﻳﺒﻐﺾ ﺍﻟﻌﻤﻞ ﺗﻄﺮﻑ ﻭﺃﻅﻬﺮ‬،،‫ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻴﻦ‬
1, 219–20: ‫ﻭﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻤﻈﻬﺮ ﺍﻟﻨﺴﻚ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻴﻦ‬
...‫ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﻟﻪ‬ ِ ‫ ﻭﺟﻌﻞ ﻣﺴﺄﻟﺘَﻪ ﻭﺳﻴﻠﺔ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺗﻌﻈﻴﻢ‬،ً‫ ﻭﻋﺎﺩ ﺳﺎﺋﻼ‬،‫ﺗﻄﺮﻑ ﻭﺃﻅﻬﺮ ﺗﺤﺮﻳﻢ ﺍﻟﻤﻜﺎﺳﺐ‬ For the
‫ ﺍﻟﻌﻤﻞ‬Ḥanbali
‫ﻓﺴﻼً ﻳﺒﻐﺾ‬cri-‫ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ‬،‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻴﻦ‬
tique of this principle, held, allegedly, by subversive mutakallimūn, cf. Muḥammad
b. Muḥammad Ibn Abῑ Ya‘lā, Ṭabaqāt al-ḥanābila, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat al-sunna
al-muḥammadiyya, 1952, pp. 30–1. See also Chapter 3 in this monograph.
23 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877),
Ch. 5,‫ﻭﺍﻟﺨﻠﻘﺎﻥ‬
10 and‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ‬
‫ﻭﺍﻟﺨﻠﻘﺎﻥ‬ ll. 20ff.
‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ‬ and,
‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬
‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬in‫ﻓﺄﻗﺒﻠﻮﺍ‬
‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ particular,
‫ﻓﺄﻗﺒﻠﻮﺍ‬ ll. 28–31:
‫ﺻﺎﺩﻗﻴﻦﻓﻴﻬﺎ‬
‫ﻓﻴﻬﺎ‬ ‫ﺻﺎﺩﻗﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﻫﻢﻏﻴﺮ‬
‫ﻏﻴﺮ‬ ‫ﺍﺑﺘﺪﻋﻮﻩﻭﻫﻢ‬
‫ﻓﻴﻤﺎﺍﺑﺘﺪﻋﻮﻩ‬
‫ﺍﺗﺒﻌﻮﻫﻢﻓﻴﻤﺎ‬
‫ﺧﻠﻒﺍﺗﺒﻌﻮﻫﻢ‬
‫ﺑﻌﺪﻫﻢﺧﻠﻒ‬
‫ﻣﻦﺑﻌﺪﻫﻢ‬
‫ﻭﺧﻠﻒﻣﻦ‬
‫ﻭﺧﻠﻒ‬
‫ﺍﻅﻬﺎﺭﻟﺰﻫﺪ ﻭﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﻣﺸﺤﻮﻧﺔ ﺑﺸﻬﻮﺍﺕ‬
‫ﺑﺬﻟﻚﺍﻅﻬﺎﺭ  ﺍ‬
‫ﻳﺮﻳﺪﻭﻥﺑﺬﻟﻚ‬
‫ﺍﻟﻤﺘﻜﺮﺝﻳﺮﻳﺪﻭﻥ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﻨﺨﺎﻟﺔ  ﻭﺍﻟﺨﺒﺰ‬
‫ﻭﺍﻟﺨﺒﺰ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﻜﺮﺝ‬ ‫ﺍﺗﺒﻌﻮﻫﻢ ﻓﻴﻤﺎ ﺍﺑﺘﺪﻋﻮﻩ ﻭﻫﻢ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺻﺎﺩﻗﻴﻦ ﻓﻴﻬﺎ ﻓﺄﻗﺒﻠﻮﺍ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻟﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﻭﺍﻟﺨﻠﻘﺎﻥ   ﻭﺃﻛﻞ‬
‫ﻭﺃﻛﻞﺍﻟﻨﺨﺎﻟﺔ‬
...‫ﺍ ﻟﺰﻫﺪ ﻭﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﻣﺸﺤﻮﻧﺔ ﺑﺸﻬﻮﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﺪﻧﻴﺎ‬
24 See Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal,
‫ﺍﻟﺘﻘﻮﻯ ﻣﺎ ﻭﻗﺮ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺎء ﺇﻧﻤﺎ‬Kitāb ‫( ﺍﻟﺘﻘﻮﻯ ﻟﻴﺲ‬Beirut:
‫ ﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ‬al-zuhd ‫ ﺇﻥ‬... ‫ﺛﻢ ﻗﺎﻝ‬Dār
‫ﺑﺠﺒﺘﻪ‬al-jīl, 1994),
‫ﻓﺄﺧﺬ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻦ‬ ‫ﺻﻮﻑ‬396‫ﺭﺃﻳﺖ ﻓﺮﻗﺪﺍ ﺍﻟﺴﺒﺨﻲ ﻭﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺟﺒﺔ‬
.‫ ﺇﻥ ﺍﻟﺘﻘﻮﻯ ﻟﻴﺲ ﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺎء ﺇﻧﻤﺎ ﺍﻟﺘﻘﻮﻯ ﻣﺎ ﻭﻗﺮ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻘﻠﺐ ﻭﺻﺪﻗﻪ ﺍﻟﻌﻤﻞ ﻭﺍﻟﻔﻌﻞ‬... ‫ﺖ ﻓﺮﻗﺪﺍ ﺍﻟﺴﺒﺨﻲ ﻭﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺟﺒﺔ ﺻﻮﻑ ﻓﺄﺧﺬ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻦ ﺑﺠﺒﺘﻪ ﺛﻢ ﻗﺎﻝ‬
25 See Suleiman A. Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History: al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrῑ
and the Formation of his Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship (Leiden: Brill,
2006), 105, citing Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt, 7,‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ‬ 169: ‫ﺳﻤﻌﺖ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻦ ﻭﺫﻛﺮ ﻋﻨﺪﻩ ﺍﻟﺬﻳﻦ ﻳﻠﺒﺴﻮﻥ‬
‫ﺑﻜﺴﺎﺋﻪ ﻣﻦ ﺻﺎﺣﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﻄﺮﻑ‬ ‫ ﻣﺎ ﻟﻬﻢ ﺗﻔﺎﻗﺪﻭﺍ ﺛﻼﺛﺎ ﺃﻛﻨﻮﺍ ﺍﻟﻜﺒﺮ ﻓﻲ ﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﻭﺃﻅﻬﺮﻭﺍ ﺍﻟﺘﻮﺍﺿﻊ ﻓﻲ ﻟﺒﺎﺳﻬﻢ ﻭﷲ ﻷﺣﺪﻫﻢ ﺃﺷﺪ ﻋﺠﺒﺎ‬:‫ﻋﻨﺪﻩ ﺍﻟﺬﻳﻦ ﻳﻠﺒﺴﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﻓﻘﺎﻝ‬
‫ﻓﻲ ﻟﺒﺎﺳﻬﻢ ﻭﷲ ﻷﺣﺪﻫﻢ ﺃﺷﺪ ﻋﺠﺒﺎ ﺑﻜﺴﺎﺋﻪ ﻣﻦ ﺻﺎﺣﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﻄﺮﻑ ﺑﻤﻄﺮﻓﻪ‬
26 Ibid.
 ‘Ṣūfism’: terms and definitions   35
27 See Florian Sobieroj, “The Muʿtazila and Ṣūfism”, in Islamic Mysticism Contested,
eds F. de Jong and B. Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 68–92.
28 See Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, 461
et passim; also Christopher Melchert, “The Transition from Asceticism to Mysti-
cism at the Middle of the 9th Century C.E.”, Studia Islamica 83 (1996): 435, n. 5;
also Louis Massignon [and Bernd Radtke], “Taṣawwuf”, Encyclopaedia of Islam2,
Vol. 10, 316.
29 See Chapter 5: Shīʿīs in Nīshāpūr, and the references there to al-Bayhaqī, Lubāb
al-ansāb.
30 Ibid.
31 Note, however, that the poet Abū al-ʿAtāhiyya, who took on an ascetical way of life,
is said to have worn white woollen clothes – see Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb
al-Aghānī, Vol. 4, 113–14: “… ‫” ﺛﻢ ﻟﺒﺲ ﺛﻴﺎﺑﺎ ﺑﻴﻀﺎ ﻣﻦ ﺻﻮﻑ‬.
32 See Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (Cairo:
Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, 1923–1998), XIV, 72–3: ‫ﻟﺒﺎﺱ ﺍﻟﻨﺒﻴﻴﻦ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﺍﻻﺑﻴﺾ‬.
33 See, for example, ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-ʿummāl fī sunan
al-aqwāl wa-l-afʿāl (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risāla, 1979–1986), Vol. 2, 378.
34 My thanks go to Prof. Ben-Shammai for calling my attention to this relevant
passage.
35 See, for example, the commentary ascribed in Midrash Rabbah, Megillat Kohelet,
parashah 9, verse 8 to Rabban Yohannan ben Zakkai: “This [verse] speaks about
nothing else but the commandments, good deeds and the Torah.”
36 Cf. Philo of Alexandria, “On the Contemplative Life”, in Works, trans. F.H. Colson
(Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press 1941), Vol. VI,
48–51: “… being clothed in tunics of the most delicate texture, and of the purest
white.”.
37 For more on this, see Chapter 5, section Shi’is in Nishapur. Jābir ibn Ḥayyān al-Ṣūfī
is mentioned by Aḥmad b. al-Qāsim Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt
al-aṭibbāʼ (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-wahbiyya, 1882), Vol. 2, 204; cf. Paul Kraus, Jābir
Ibn Ḥayyān: Contribution à l’Histoire des Idées Scientifiques dans l’Islam (Cairo:
Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale, 1943), Vol. 1, xl. Interestingly, Ibn
al-Nadīm mentions two other alchemists who were nicknamed al-ṣūfī: Abū Bakr ʿAlī
b. Muḥammad al-Khurāsānī al-ʿAlawī al-Ṣūfī, a descendant of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī [b.
Abī Ṭālib] as well as Ibn Waḥshiyya, the well-known Nabataean ‘magician’, who
authored, among other works, Kitāb al-filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya – see Muḥammad b. Isḥāq
Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist (Leipzig: Vogel, 1871–1872), 311, 353, 359 – with thanks to
Dr Michael Ebstein.
38 See, for example, Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl
al-taṣawwuf, eds ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and ʿAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Damascus: Dār
­al-kutub al-ʿarabī, 1407/1986), Ch. 1, 21–6; also, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb
al-taṣawwuf (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, n.d.), 126.
39 See Melchert, “The Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism”, 51.
40 See Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and
Ruth Hamori (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), Ch. 4, 116–66.
41 See R.A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (London: G. Bell, 1914 – reprint 1974), 4f.
42 See Louis Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique
Musulmane (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1968 – reprint), especially
Ch. 4, 137ff.
43 See ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad Ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddima (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat
Muṣṭafā Muḥammad, 1955), 467–75. Translated by F. Rosenthal in Ibn Khaldūn, The
Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (New York: Bollingen, 1958), Vol. 3,
76–103.
44 See Chapters 4 and 5 in this monograph.
36   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
45 See, for example, the intriguing comment made by Jaʿfar al-Khuldī (d. 348/959), who
had allegedly compiled over 130 collections of Ṣūfī writings. When asked whether
he had any works by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, he replied: “I do not reckon him among
the Sufis (‫ – ”)ﻣﺎ ﻋﺪﺩﺗﻪ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻴﺔ‬see Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt
al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 454.
46 See his ‘conversion’ story in, for example, al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 14–15.
2 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism
Conduct and attitude

Introduction
Because it is a universal phenomenon, in evidence in ancient as well as
modern societies, and because it is often a dramatic, even controversial,
part of religions and cultures, asceticism has long been the subject of
popular and intellectual interest.

This is how Wimbush and Valantasis open their monumental collection of

papers titled simply Asceticism.1 In this huge volume – the proceedings of an
international conference at Union Theological Seminary in New York in April
1993 – nearly fifty contributions and responses were collated, among them a
response focusing on “the place of sensuality in Sufism”.2 The attributes
­‘universal’, ‘dramatic’, ‘controversial’ in the above citation are noteworthy; they
are warranted by the wealth of material and the thought-provoking variety of
outlooks presented by eminent authorities. It becomes apparent that there are
many aspects from which to view and evaluate the complex ‘ascetical’ phenom-
enon and the many terms and expressions by which it can be articulated, within
individual traditions and cultures.
In the framework of Islamic mysticism, it may be useful to go back to the
roots and ponder the Arabic term for ‘asceticism’ and its semantics. Zuhd (also,
in some early works, zahāda) – and the derivative ‘ascetic’ (sg. zāhid, pl.
zuhhād, zāhidūn) – are conventionally used as the Arabic equivalent of ‘asceti-
cism’. In order to avoid the somewhat distant cultural connotations of the term
‘asceticism’, some scholars of Islam have chosen to exchange it with ‘absten-
tion’ or ‘renunciation’, and to refer to those who deny it as ‘renunciants’ rather
than ‘ascetics’.3 In an attempt to detect the semantics of zuhd in Islam, the aspect
of ‘giving little value to the world’ should be emphasized, as it signifies an atti-
tude towards the world rather than a conduct that implies denial and
renunciation.
The full Arabic term under observation is not merely al-zuhd but al-zuhd fī
‘l-dunyā, which implies a devaluation of the world, belittling it, ‘setting small
store for the world’. The expression ‘setting small store’ alludes to the only
verse in the Qurʾān, a hapax legomenon, in which the verbal root z-h-d appears.
38   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
Describing the short change with which Joseph’s brothers had sold him to the
Ishmaelites, Q. 12:20 reads: “Then they sold him for a paltry price, a handful of
counted dirhams; for they set small store by him” (trans. Arberry, 227)
­(wa-sharawhu bi-thamanin bakhsin darāhim maʿdūda wa-kānū fīhi min
al-zāhidīn). This proof text suggests that zāhid originally means ‘one who thinks
little of’; hence, al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā means ‘to think little of this world’ and, ipso
facto, to regard highly ‘the other world’, al-ākhira, the afterlife. Zuhd, therefore,
essentially signifies an attitude, a value setting, of disregard for this world.
We learn about al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā in Islam first and foremost from the zuhdī
literature, namely, from works specifically devoted to this topic to the point of
being titled by it. Works bearing titles such as Kitāb al-zuhd, or Bāb fī ‘l-zuhd,
were mushrooming in the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries both as indi-
vidual books or as chapters in Ḥadīth collections and in Adab compilations.4
Many sayings concerning al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā can be drawn from this early zuhdī
literature and its parallels may be found also in the Ḥadīth literature. Here, for
example, is a revealing anecdote:

A group of horsemen riding with the Prophet passed by a dead lamb. The
prophet said: Do you see this? It had such little value for its owners that
they threw it away … The world has even less value for God than this one
for its owners (fa ‘l-dunyā ahwanu ʿalā Allāh min hādhihi ʿalā ahlihā).5

Another example may be cited from Kitāb al-Zuhd al-kabīr, a large compilation
of traditions on zuhd assembled by Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, a fifth/eleventh-century
scholar from Nīshāpūr. Most of the traditions in this book are attributed to
­figures that the compiler identifies as Ṣūfīs. The following is a tradition attributed
to al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ (d. 188/803):

All that is evil was placed in one house, its key is the love for the world
(wa-juʿila miftāḥuhu ḥubb al-dunyā); and all that is good was placed in a
house, its key is the denigration of the world (wa-juʿila miftāḥuhu al-zuhd fī
‘l-dunyā).6

In general terms, zuhd in Islam, especially within the Ṣūfī lore, focuses on
‘attitude’ and ‘states of mind’ rather than on ‘activity’ and extreme conduct. One
of the signifiers of this insistence on ‘attitude’ is the notion of qiṣar al-amal,
curtailing hopes and anticipations for the future (see below, The ascetical model
in Islamic mysticism section). To this, one may add such notions as ḥusn
al-ẓann, thinking well [in particular of Allāh’s decree], and hence cultivating an
attitude of acceptance (riḍā), reliance (tawakkul), gratitude (shukr), perseverance
(ṣabr) and submission (islām, istislām). In Ṣūfī parlance this has led to the pre-
eminence of ‘the actions of the hearts’ (aʿmāl al-qulūb) over ‘the actions of the
bodily organs’ (aʿmāl al-jawāriḥ) – namely, of mental and psychological states
which, in due course, were termed maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl – designed to become
established in one’s self by means of following certain educational programmes
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   39
occasionally named riyāḍa, training. In fact, riyāḍa is the precise Arabic term
7

equivalent to the Greek askēsis, from which the term ‘asceticism’ derives.8
­Agonizing though the demands set up by these programmes might be, they
revolve around the psychological fight with one’s self rather than around extro-
verted ascetical feats. If fruitful, they could lead to the transformation of
the base qualities of the ‘self’ and to a radical shift in the practitioner’s value
system. In this shift, one could become aware of the heart’s true aspiration and
of the superior values of the devotional life; hence s/he could become willing to
give up, to ‘renounce’, without struggle, all that stands in the heart’s way.9 In
these programmes, the recommended modes of conduct are anchored in imitat-
ing chosen role-models: first and foremost the Prophet. Worthy of imitation are
also the ‘friends of God’ (awliyāʾ Allāh), the Masters, who, especially by means
of ‘etiquette’ (ādāb), inculcate within their disciples the correct activity in all of
life’s circumstances. As we shall see, in all these programmes, the main effort is
directed to the transformation of the ‘self’, the nafs. Hence, the training of the
self, riyāḍāt al-nafs, becomes the main effort (mujāhada) of Muslim mystics,
early and late, and a focused way of life for those who have turned their backs
on the world in their search for the divine.
Another introductory observation concerns a historical and typological confu-
sion: according to conventional perceptions, zuhd had been an early phenom-
enon out of which, gradually, taṣawwuf evolved.10 In fact, one can observe three
different types of zuhd coexisting simultaneously from as early as the second/
eighth century: a type advocating an extreme ascetical conduct, which, among
other practices, included wearing rough woollen garments (hence, initially, ṣūfī
denoted an extreme ascetic rather than a mystic);11 a ‘mild’ type of ascetical con-
duct, which advocated an inward attitude of rejecting worldly things out of reli-
gious piety;12 and, third, zuhd as a mystical station (maqām, manzila) in a
process of inner transformation, leading towards an intimate, luminous nearness
to God and, consequently, to a behavioural ‘synergy’ with Him.13 This third
type, as demonstrated by early as well as late literary documents, is what zuhd
has meant for the mystics of Islam. It should be noted, however, that, when con-
sulting literary sources, especially the hagiographic literature, an overlap of
terms and descriptions may cause confusion. Such an overlap is particularly
apparent in the hagiographies of early mystics and pietists, as well as in Ṣūfī
compilations in general, where the lines between the different types of zuhhād,
perhaps intentionally, tend to be blurred.

The zeitgeist: alienation from this world

ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (d. 73/693), the son of the second Caliph and one of the
Prophet’s close companions, tells how the Prophet, touching him, proclaimed: “Oh,
ʿAbd Allāh, be in this world as if you were a stranger (gharīb) or a passing way-
farer (ʿābir sabīl), and reckon yourself among the denizens of graves (wa-ʿudda
nafsaka min ahli l-qubūr).”14 To ‘be in the world like a stranger’ implies that the
believer should adopt an attitude of alienation towards worldly matters; ‘reckon
40   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
yourself among the denizens of graves’ implies that he should be aware of death’s
imminence and life’s transient nature and, therefore, should not be attached to any-
thing. Such a call to ‘alienation’ from the world echoes the ascetic, other-worldly
disposition prevalent in Late Antiquity among monks, renunciants and certain
philosophical schools. Thus, for example, the fifth-century St John Climacus
(579–606 ce), in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, describes the merit of ‘exile’ (in
Greek xaniteia, which means both exile and being a stranger) and writes:

Exile means that we leave forever everything in our own country that
­prevents us from reaching the goal of the religious life … For exile is sepa-
ration from everything in order to keep from every attachment to … people
and to strangers.15

Gnostic sources, too, reflect the ideal of ‘alienation’ or ‘exile’ from ‘the world’
as the wish of the soul to return to its original state and abode.16 Such ideas
occur also in dualistic Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism
and Mazdakism.17 Philosophers, especially those associated with Stoicism, prac-
tised apatheia, namely, to regard the world and the suffering of the earthly life
with equanimity, without emotional attachment, and to contemplate death.
Marcus Aurelius, for example, writes

Human life: duration: momentary; nature: changeable; perception: dim;

condition of body: decaying; soul: spinning around; fortune: unpredictable;
lasting fame: uncertain. Sum up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul
a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting repu-
tation is oblivion.18

The prophetic statements in the above quoted ḥadīth reflect, no doubt, a

similar disregard for this-worldly-life; a call to live in it “as a stranger”. This
bend of mind, widely familiar in Late Antiquity, seems to have been adopted
by individuals or groups in Early Islam. It was later taken up, with modifica-
tions, also by Muslim pietists and became part of the Ṣūfī ethos, on which this
chapter focuses. From among the various currents which could have infused
this world-view into Early Islam, Christian monasticism seems the most likely
candidate. Themes concerning Christian monks roaming the desert or living in
mountainous caves remote from inhabited centres occur profusely in early
Islamic sources, as well as in Christian ones.19 The well-known story of the
monk Baḥīrā is a case in point: looking down from his solitary cell over a
caravan of traders from the Ḥijāz, he recognized the ‘sign’ of prophecy
between the shoulders of the young Muḥammad. He could thus ascertain that
this young man was the long-awaited ‘messenger’ named Aḥmad, whose
appearance – confirmed by Q. 61:6 – was prophesized by Jesus.20 But there are
also other stories, from which the role played by monks in proclaiming the
validity of the Prophet and in inspiring an ascetical mode of living in nascent
Islam is evidenced. Notably, the story about Salmān al-Fārisī, who, after the
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   41
idea of a Creator God had awakened in his heart, left his Zoroastrian (?) kins-
men and home in Jayy, in the province of Iṣfahān, and went in search of the
true religion which upholds this idea. On his long journey, which took him
from Jayy to Mosul, then to the Jazīra, al-ʿAmmūriyya (in Asia Minor) and
finally to al-Madīna, Christian monks ­directed him from one to another and
from place to place till finally he reached his goal in al-Madīna. He stayed
with each monk for several years, taking up their devotional practices such as
fasting during the day and praying during the night. But only after meeting
Muḥammad in al-Madīna did he become convinced that he had attained to his
goal: he found the true prophet and the true religion and thus, at once,
embraced the new faith of Islam21 (see Figure 2.1).
Besides being an account of an initiatory passage into the religion of Islam,
what seems relevant in the context of tracing early Islamic asceticism is the
tradition describing how Salmān’s initiation took place along late antique
routes inhabited by Christian monks, and, that in the last resort, Salmān’s
arrival at the threshold of the true prophet was facilitated by monks versed in
the sacred lore. Needless to say: it is neither the historicity of this and similar
accounts, nor its polemical undertones, that we are trying to trace; rather, it is
the notion that a model of a devotional and ascetical life in Early Islam was

Figure 2.1  Map of Salmān’s search for truth.

Source: Maytham Hatam, Wikishia.net
42   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
stimulated by monasticism. It is also worth highlighting that Muslim sources,
regardless of their polemical enterprise, did not recoil from acknowledging the
contribution of Christian monasticism to the build-up of ascetical features and
values in Early Islam.

The build-up of a ‘moderate’ ascetical model

The ascetical model, Christian as well as Manichean, which was witnessed by
early devout Muslims, exhibited practices such as wandering in deserts or dwell-
ing in remote mountainous cells;22 wearing ragged clothes that denote poverty or
no clothes at all; fasting extensively; praying incessantly in the night; observing
celibacy, etc.23 That some early pious Muslims wished to adopt these practices
and perhaps even to exceed them we learn, for example, from the early com-
mentary of Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. c.150/767) to Q. 5:87: “Do not ban the good
things which God made permissible to you (lā tuḥarrimū ṭayyibāt mā aḥalla
Allāhu lakum)”. According to Muqātil, this verse came down (nazalat) in
response to ten of the Prophet’s closest companions who had convened in the
house of ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn, and together resolved to deny themselves food,
clothes and women. They even undertook to emasculate themselves, put on a
garb of hair, erect solitary cells (ṣawāmiʿ), and resort in them to the monastic
life (fa-yatarahhabū fīhā).24 Upon learning this from the angel Gabriel, the
Prophet’s response was immediate and unequivocal: “… He who does not
adhere to my sunna and does not follow my fashion, does not belong to me …
Our sunna is (wearing) clothes, (eating) food and (having) women …”25
Other extreme practices were also criticized as being at odds with the more
lenient direction that the nascent sharīʿā was taking and with the model set up
by the Prophet Muḥammad. Many references to and commentaries of the well-
known tradition “There is no monasticism in Islam” (lā rahbāniyyata fī`l-islām)26
suggest that the strict monastic model was seen as defying the religious prescrip-
tions of Early Islam. Extreme and continuous fasting is a case in point. When the
companion ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ wished to practise continuous fasting
(ṣawm al-dahr), above and beyond the fasting required by the sharīʿa, the
Prophet prohibited him from doing so. ʿAbd Allāh pleaded and bargained with
the Prophet, claiming that he could endure long periods of fasting. Finally, the
Prophet conceded and allowed him a routine known as ‘the fasting of Dāwūd’
(ṣawm/ṣiyām Dāwūd), namely, fasting on alternate days (kāna yaṣūmu yawman
wa-yufṭiru yawman).27 This fasting pattern established the limit of Muslim
­ascetical endeavour concerning food prevention.
The accounts referred to show that in Early Islam there was no tolerance
towards ascetic extremities in the fashion of monks and anchorites: continuous
fasting, praying during the night, total or partial celibacy dictated by continuous
night praying, wandering away from home and the like – all these did not
become part and parcel of the lifestyle recommended for the believers. Such
ascetical practices were often referred to, at times disparagingly, by idioms such
as taqashshuf, nusk, taʿabbud, tarahhub. Instead, a moderate version had
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   43
developed as a prescription for pious believers, one that could be upheld not
only by ascetical ‘virtuosi’, but by the general community of believers at large.
It is noteworthy that this call for moderation is illustrated in various anecdotes
relating to Salmān al-Fārisī; anecdotes which suggest that, having found the
‘true religion’, he relinquished the extreme ascetical practices which he had
adopted during his sojourns with Christian monks. For example, when he saw a
gloomy Umm al-Dardāʾ, upset that her husband was avoiding intercourse with
her, he reproached Abū al-Dardāʾ saying: “You owe your wife her right – pray
and sleep, fast and eat”. When the Prophet heard of Salmān’s call for moderation
in piety, he exclaimed: “Salmān was given [right] knowledge!”28
It may not be superfluous to reiterate that we are not dealing here with the
historicity of the biographies of Salmān, Umm and Abū al-Dardāʾ and of other
early personalities; rather, we are tracing the pious tendencies, projected into
­literary sources since the second/eighth century, which contributed to the
­construction of the ideal of ascetical conduct in moderation, also referred to as
‘mild asceticism’.29 Such moderation enabled, no doubt, the build-up of a pious
ideal, which could be practically applied by the Islamic public at large and not
only by ‘specialists’ belonging to an ascetical elite.30 An important aspect of this
ideal became reflected in attitudes towards the ‘world’: ‘this-world’ (al-dunyā),
and, ipso facto, the ‘afterlife’ (al-ākhira).

The ascetical model in Islamic mysticism

As observed above, the equivalent Arabic term for ‘asceticism’/‘renunciation’
is al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā, literally: ascribing little value to the terrestrial world.
Traditionally, the counterpart of ‘this world’ is ‘the afterlife’ (al-ākhira),
which the sincere believers value over and above the terrestrial life. While life
in this world is fleeting and temporary, the believers hope to arrive at the
­permanence and stability of Paradise, al-janna, the abode of reward in the
‘afterlife’. Opposite to al-janna abides Hell-fire, al-nār, where sinners and
reprobates will be punished for their sins and transgressions. Following these
polar prospects projected into the afterlife, believers in this life are thrown
between ‘hope’ (rajāʾ) for reward in al-janna and ‘fear’ (khawf) of punish-
ment in al-nār. These polar emotions often result in an attempt to scrupulously
observe the religious law to the point of making an extra effort, often seen as
‘combat’ (mujāhada). Effortful practices additional to the prescribed com-
mandments (ʿibādāt) are often relegated to the category of ‘supererogatory
acts’ (nawāfil). An approach that implies extra effort finds itself dialectically
conflicted with the advised ­caution described above to not exceed the pre-
scribed moderation. This caution may be reflected in a saying attributed to
Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 162/778), one of the renowned pietists of the second/
eighth century. Sufyān reportedly said: “abstention from this-world [rests on]
curtailing one’s hope [for the future]; [it does] not [rest on] eating rough food
and wearing a [coarse woollen] cloak.”31 This statement clearly reflects the
insistence of some early zuhhād on cultivating an ‘attitude’ of inward renunciation
44   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
of the world, regarding such renunciation as superior to extreme acts of
­world-denial in anticipation of future reward. Such attitude is often character-
ized by the notion of qiṣar al-amal, the curtailing of hopes, namely, an
­‘attitude’ devoid of anticipation for the future, which seems inconsistent, at
least to a degree, with the paradigm of ‘fear and hope’.
Alongside the classical sources of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries
(Ḥadīth, Adab, commentaries, biographies) from which we derive most of our
data and notions concerning zuhd, the theme of zuhd appeared also in works by
authors who subsequently became associated with Ṣūfism (taṣawwuf). Some of
these works were written prior to the appearance of the first Ṣūfī compilations in
the late fourth/tenth century, hence they belong to what can be labelled ‘the pre-
compilatory phase’.32 Although al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā occupied a recurring theme
in early works written by mystics, it took on a different direction to what was
presented in the non-mystical zuhdī literature. Following on from the upgrading
of an inner ‘attitude’ above external practices – as seen in Sufyān’s saying and
in the principle of qiṣar al-amal – mystical authors paid special attention to the
training of the self (riyāḍāt al-nafs). They devised a psycho-physical regime,
designed to assist disciples and seekers to alienate their selves from the natural
human inclination towards the world inherent in them (in Arabic: al-hawā) and
to cultivate a ‘personality’ that, in its dealings with ‘this world’, resists such
inclination. What they devised were regimes that marked out stages and stations
(manāzil, maqāmāt) in the process of the training of the self – they can be
named ‘a spiritual ladder of ascension’. Rather than extraneous self-denial and
world-denying practices, such regimes, built upon the aspiration to reach God’s
vicinity (qurb) in the present lifetime rather than in the life to come, combined
ascetical practices (riyāḍāt) with relentless self-observation (muḥāsaba,
murāqaba). Among the early authors who contributed to this approach and
whose works inspired successive mystical teachings, the following should be
mentioned: Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 810/195), al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857), Sahl
al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c.300/905), Abū Saʿīd
al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899) and Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 298/910). Although all
became part and parcel of the later Ṣūfī lore, at this early phase, most of them
were not labelled Ṣūfīs or identified as such. From among the personalities in
this list, the early mystical pedagogy dealing with al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā may be
explored by means of three early mystics: Shaqīq al-Balkhī, al-Muḥāsibī and
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.
Shaqīq al-Balkhī was a second/eighth-century author who hailed, according
to his nisba and later hagiographies, from Balkh in Central Asia (modern-day
Afghanistan).33 In charting the history of the mystical movement in Islam, his
early lifetime is a significant fact. His extant writings, which, thanks to the work
of Paul Nwyia, have become accessible, help us ascertain the simultaneous
coexistence of ascetical alongside mystical trends in Early Islam, and thus to
modify the consensual paradigm of ‘first there was asceticism, then came mysti-
cism.’34 In a short treatise titled Ādāb al-ʿibādāt (Rules of Conduct for Acts of
Worship),35 zuhd is the first of four ‘stages’ (in Shaqīq’s terminology: manāzil,
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   45
sg. manzila), in a ladder of ascent culminating in the lofty stage of the ‘love of
God’ (al-maḥabba li-llāh). The four stages that Shaqīq envisages are designed to
transform the nafs, the lower-self, from a self-absorbed, self-loving, earth-bound
entity, manipulated by ‘desires’ for this-world, to an enlightened entity that can
experience God’s nearness and intimacy during this life. These stages start with
zuhd – the most appropriate translation here, contextually, is ‘abstention’, par-
ticularly abstention from excessive eating and drinking. This training of the
lower-self, according to Shaqīq and other authors, is essential in order to curtail
her desires (adab al-nafs bi-qaṭʿ al-shahawāt). By avoiding eating in excess, the
nafs becomes gradually accustomed to sustaining hunger (jūʿ), to becoming
aware of other superfluous desires and to eliminating them altogether (fa-yaṭlaʿu
fī tilka al-ḥāl ilā fuḍūl al-shahawāt). Hence, this training develops a disregard
for the world and its values (fa-huwa yawmaʾidhin fī ‘l-dunyā lā yaṭlubuhā maʿa
al-ṭālibīn … qad hānat ʿalayhi …). Superficially, such a process may seem as an
ascetical regime, but it is merely the first stage in an elaborate process whose
goal is the transformation of the inner tendencies which lie behind the external
manifestation. The second stage in Shaqīq’s ‘ladder’ is ‘fear’ (khawf). Shaqīq
describes fear as inherently connected with zuhd, “for there is no zuhd without
the fear of God … He who adheres to zuhd necessarily adheres to fear (fa-lā
yalzamu al-ʿabd al-zuhd a … ḥattā yalzama ‘l-khawf a).” Self- and world-denial,
psychologically and theologically, stem from the fear of God’s retribution
in Hell-fire. However, according to Shaqīq, these intertwined stages do not have
to remain permanently; rather, after reaching their zenith – which, according
to Shaqīq, occurs after forty days – they may be let go of to be followed
by a loftier stage, the third and penultimate one: longing for Paradise (al-shawq
ilā ‘l-janna). Here is how Shaqīq describes the change that takes place at
this stage:

He (i.e. the practitioner) then becomes one who yearns (al-mushtāq), who
loves ardently (al-shadīd al-ḥubb), a knower and a stranger (al-ʿālim
al-gharīb), constantly behaving kindly (al-dāʾim al-iḥsān), one who does
not hasten to acquire possessions (alladhī lā yarūḥu li-kasb al-māl). …
When you see him, he is always smiling, pleased with what he possesses. …
He is the one continuously fasting, the one continuously praying
(al-ṣawwām al-qawwām).36

This transformation occurs in this life and is not confined to a ‘reward and pun-
ishment’ in the afterlife theology. It described a state of being while in the
world. Though Shaqīq’s programme contains ‘ascetical’ elements, they are not
its main characteristics. Al-ṣawwām al-qawwām – “one continuously fasting,
continuously praying” – may even be understood as an ironical reference to
those who are immersed in fasting and praying at the expense of proceeding
towards higher states. The fourth, last and most elevated stage in Shaqīq’s pro-
gramme is the love of God (al-maḥabba li-llāh). “Not everyone reaches this
stage”, he writes,
46   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
for it is the loftiest and most splendid of all stages … When God makes him
[the seeker] reach this stage, the light of love is in his heart. It overpowers
him without eliminating the lights of the previous stages of zuhd, fear and
longing for paradise … His heart is filled with love and longing for Him;
these, due to God’s kindness, mercy, light and generosity to him, make him
forget the former stages of fear and longing to paradise.37

In other words, when immersed in the love of God – which is not simply a
‘concept’ but a real state of being – the impact of the lower stages fades.
A pattern can thus be established: on the ‘ascending ladder’, an advanced
‘stage’ overshadows the lower stages. When one reaches the uppermost stage of
the love of God, the lesser stages of abstention, fear and longing for Paradise
dim out. This psychological and mystical phenomenon of illumination, Shaqīq
describes as an analogy to the sky lights:

The light of abstention and fear in the heart resembles the light of a glittering
star … When the moon rises, the light of the star dims out, though the star
remains as it was. Similarly, the light of longing overshadows the light of fear
and abstention without reducing their original light. As for the light of longing
in relation to the light of love, it is like the rising moon in relation to the sun.
When the sun rises, it turns off the moon’s light though the moon does not
move from its place and its original light is not reduced at all. Thus, in
worship, the light of the love of God is the strongest and loftiest.38

In Shaqīq’s quadruple programme, abstention (zuhd) and fear (khawf), though

indispensable, are the lowest and weakest stages in the transformative progress
of the heart. Above them rank longing (shawq) and love (maḥabba). All stages
relate to lights which reside in the heart; namely, to psychological capacities that
grow in intensity along a transformative passage. This passage takes place not in
the afterlife but in the interiority of the believer during his/her worldly existence.
More than projecting the religious aspiration towards an afterlife with its
rewards and retributions, the transformative progress takes place during the
earthly life. Ṣūfīs, early and late, have reiterated this point both by stressing
the value of ‘curtailing the hopes for the future’ (qiṣar al-ʾamal) as well as in the
maxim: “the Ṣūfī is the son of the ‘moment’ (al-ṣūfī ibnu waqtihi)”.
Whether directly related to Shaqīq or not, similar programmes are replicated
in the Ṣūfī system at large, in which zuhd is considered an elementary, primary
and necessary stage on the ascending ladder of the mystical progress. Thus, in
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ of Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), for example, zuhd is the
third station (maqām) in a sevenfold ladder; al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990) counts
zuhd as the second maqām between ‘repentance’ (tawba) and ‘perseverance’
(ṣabr); al-Anṣārī al-Harawī (d. 481/1089), in Manāzil al-sāʾirīn, prescribes a
much more detailed programme consisting of 100 stations (manāzil), in which
zuhd occupies the sixth position; al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234), in ʿAwārif
al-maʿārif, discusses zuhd as a stage that follows ‘repentance’ (tawba) and
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   47
precedes ‘reliance’ (tawakkul). These are but a few examples, culled from a
39

very rich library of Ṣūfī works, late and early, that deal with the stages and states –
often referred to as maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl – on the mystical ladder. All of them
count zuhd among the earlier and thus lesser stages on it.40

Zuhd as Riyāḍāt al-Nafs

In Ṣūfī literature, the main focus of the ascetical programme is not the ‘world’
(al-dunyā), but the ‘self’, the ‘lower-self’ (also the ‘carnal self’) – al-nafs. The
Qurʾān speaks of three different ‘selves’ (or ‘souls’): the tempting self (al-nafs
al-ammāra bil-sūʾ – Q. 12:53); the blaming self (al-nafs al-lawwāma – Q. 75:2);
and the contented, serene self (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna – Q. 89: 27). These verses
inspired Ṣūfī authors to view the nafs as a subtle interior entity, with strong ties
to both the ‘inclination’ (al-hawā) and the ‘Adversary’ (Iblīs, al-ʿaduww). Due
to these affinities, the nafs is laden with negative characteristics, but – as pointed
out in Q. 89:27 – she is also susceptible to transform into an enlightened and
serene entity.41 Such transformation can only come about through effort and a
special ‘training’ – adab, riyāḍa. The training is perceived as ‘combat’
(mujāhada, jihād), a view which is supported by various traditions attributed to
the Prophet, for example: “Your worst enemy is the nafs that lies between your
flanks (aʿdā ʿaduwwika al-nafs bayna janbayka).”42
It is easy to see in ‘combat’ a reference to severe ascetic activities, which emulate
the monastic paradigm mentioned above. But the line taken by the early mystical
authors, and subsequently in the later Ṣūfī system at large, is often mistrustful – and
therefore even contentious – of external practices: such practices, rather than elim-
inate the nafs, they argue, strengthen her, for in her cunning manipulation, the nafs
turns the tables on the ascetical seeker. In directing the ‘combat’ inwardly rather than
outwardly, Ṣūfīs insist on a ‘psychological’ paradigm that demands constant watch-
fulness over the nafs and relentless reckoning with her. Such ‘watchful observation’
is often referred to as iʿtibār, taʾammul, tafakkur, naẓar; the established term for
‘reckoning’ with the nafs is muḥāsabat al-nafs.
In the Islamic mystical tradition, therefore, al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā, first and fore-
most, refers to a psychological effort to cut off any attachment to worldly
matters that may please the nafs and satisfy her desires – such as possessions,
self-regard and social status. Ṣūfīs refer to such an act as qaṭʿ al-ʿalāʾiq. Thus,
for example, al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1074) cites a fourth/tenth-century Ṣūfī of the
Baghdādī school:

The worshipper does not find pleasure in his conduct with God as long as the
pleasure of the nafs remains [with him]. Hence, the people of truths (ahl
al-ḥaqāʾiq) have cut off the attachments (qaṭaʿū al-ʿalāʾiq) that separate them
from the Truth (al-Ḥaqq) before the attachments cut them off [from Him].43

And al-Sarrāj, in a chapter devoted to the stage of zuhd, cites the following defi-
nitions, by al-Junayd (d. 298/910) and by his teacher and maternal uncle Sarī
48   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
al-Saqaṭī (d. c.253/867). Al-Junayd said: “Zuhd means that the hands are empty
of possessions (amlāk) and the hearts are empty of greed (ṭamaʿ)”; and Sarī
said: “Zuhd means that the heart is empty of that which the hands became
empty of ”.44
One of the earliest authors in the line of ‘interiorizing’ the combat with the
nafs – in fact, the one who laid down the literary foundation for the inward-looking
principle – and who emphasized the need to constantly watch over the nafs, is
fittingly nicknamed al-Muḥāsibī, ‘the one who reckons’. ‘An early mystic of
Baghdad’ (d. 243/857), to allude to one of the earliest studies on him by Margaret
Smith, he inspired several lengthy studies.45 Here is a telling citation from his
epistle Sharḥ al-maʿrifa wa-badhl al-naṣīḥa (Explaining knowledge and extend-
ing advice):

It is incumbent upon you, my brother, to reckon with your ‘self’

(muḥāsaba), to know her (maʿrifa) and to oppose (mukhālafa) whatever she
entices you to; for, more than by anything else, the ‘self’ is characterized by
what is despicable (radhāʾil).46

Knowing and observing the self, for al-Muḥāsibī, entail paying special atten-
tion to her cunning propensity to deceive and delude the ascetics, despite – or
rather due to – their external acts of self- and world-denial. He writes: “Without
knowing your ‘self’, your power (bi-qudratika – or should one read
bi-qudratihā, ‘by her power’?) and your Lord, do not be deluded by your
lengthy night vigils or by your prolonged fasting or by other external supererog-
atory acts (nawāfil)”.
Al-Muḥāsibī even notes, disparagingly, that the ulterior motive for most
ascetics – sometimes he names them qurrāʾ and ahl al-taqashshuf – is to feign
poverty and exhibit piety in order to gain public praise and favour. In his
al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wal-jawāriḥ (Questions Concerning the Actions of
the Hearts and of the Organs), he writes: “there are many a renunciant (muqill)
whose asceticism (zuhd) is apparent on the exterior of their body, while their
hearts are engaged with desire”. Then he cites a certain sage who finds the following
saying in the ‘wisdom of Jesus’:47

We have seen that some of the renunciants are full of love for this world,
whereas others, wealthy ones, are devoid of such love for this world; for
example, the chosen ones Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon. Then,
when God willed it, they detached themselves even from a grain of sand.48

In this vein, he writes also this:

I fear that most of the worshippers among our contemporaries are deceived
and deluded (makhdūʿīn mughtarrīn); how many a self-denying one,
wearing [ragged] clothes (mutaqashshif fī libāsihi), belittling himself
(mutadhallil fī nafsihi), eating trifle food from the rubble of the world; how
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   49
many a praying and fasting one; a warrior, a pilgrim, a weeper, a preacher
and one who feigns abstention from the world (wa-muẓhir lil-zahāda
­fīl-dunyā) – with no sincerity of conscience to the Lord of the worlds (ʿalā
ghayr ṣidq min al-ḍamīr) …49

Similarly, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, another early mystic, makes an analogy

between false and genuine Christian monasticism on the one side with false and
genuine asceticism of his time on the other. He writes,

The so-called ascetics of our time (mutazahhidat zamāninā), like [preten-

tious monks] behave in this manner: they take up wearing wool and shabby
clothes, eating leftovers and stale bread. Their wish is to exhibit asceticism
(iẓhār al-zuhd) while their hearts are full of worldly desires, making their
religion a means for their worldly drives.50

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s physiology and

cosmology of the nafs
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s views of the ‘lower-self’ (nafs) and the need to beware
of her manipulations stem from an overall understanding of her physiological
characteristics and cosmological origin (see in detail Chapter 8, The physiology
of nafs section). His analysis of the dynamics of the nafs and her association
with pleasure (ladhdha), desire (shahwa), and the base inclination (hawā) is
consistent, though hardly systematic or formal. The origin of all these compon-
ents, which inhere in the human body, is the element of ‘fire’ and are thus asso-
ciated with the cosmic fire, that is, Hell and with Iblīs, Satan, the element of evil
and temptation.51 Here is a recap of al-Tirmidhī’s description: The nafs is the life
force which, on the day of creation, enlivened the clay (ṭīna) from which Adam
was created. In the primordial act of creation, the nafs attached herself to the
hollow interior (jawf) of Adam’s body; ever since, she resides within all human
beings. Though Adam came to life by the breath of God, his body became vital
and energized by means of the nafs which brought with her the earthly life force
inherent in the clay. The nafs is not an abstract concept; she is an entity located
in the lungs. With the breath (nafas) and via the blood vessels, she moves
through the entire body. She spreads in the body with immense speed and inter-
acts with other organic energies akin to herself, for example, ‘desire’ (shahwa),
which is seen by al-Tirmidhī as an organic substance with a capacity for growth,
movement and fermentation. All these entities and energies have a cosmological
origin: ‘desire’ comes from the fire of Hell;52 it retains a kinship with joy
(faraḥ), attractive loveliness (zīna), and the base inclination (hawā). All three,
take residence in the body and have an impact on the human being’s psycho-
logical drives which manifest in his physical conduct. The fast movement of the
nafs in the bloodstream produces pleasure (ladhdha), another animated energy
on which the nafs feeds. Pleasure interacts with the inclination (hawā), and this
cluster of impulses, filled with vital, organic and cosmic energy, reaches the
50   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
bodily organs by means of the fast movement of the nafs through the
­bloodstream. One example of such a meeting of energies is the gushing forth of
the seminal fluid (māʾ al-ṣulb) in the pleasurable act of copulation.53
This complex structure stands at the root of al-Tirmidhī’s incredulity not only
of the nafs, but also of the ascetical conduct. According to him, all behaviour
and every ambition, be it for a good or a bad cause, stems from the nafs. The
deep entanglement of the person with the nafs is reflected, linguistically, in the
reflexive pronoun bi-nafsī = by myself. Personhood, by definition, is associated
with the nafs; the nafs is the person, the ‘ego’.
In his Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, al-Tirmidhī offers a detailed description, at times pain-
ful in its honest inward-looking, of the path a seeker must take in order to purify
his heart in his wish (irāda) to reach God’s vicinity. On his path, he oscillates
between periods of extreme ascetic effort (jahd, mujāhada, riyāḍa) on the one
side and, on the other, of desolate, sober realization of the futility of effort. In
Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, he offers a detailed description of the seeker’s ascetic struggle
at the beginning of his quest (irāda): it consists of abstaining from food, drink
and clothes; forcing abstention on all parts of his body: his hearing, seeing, talk-
ing, handling and walking; and seclusion (ʿuzla) – in fact, any of the ascetic
practices that can be culled from the familiar monastic inventory.54 But to no
avail. The nafs takes control and ascribes to herself all his achievements. She is,
writes al-Tirmidhī, like a tree whose branches keep shooting up anew even when
the seeker exerts all his efforts to uproot it altogether.55 The awareness of this
hopeless situation comes about by means of ‘self-observation’. Al-Tirmidhī uses
the verb naẓara (to observe, investigate) rather than ḥāsaba (from which
muḥāsaba derives). By means of self-observation (naẓar), the seeker finds that
his attempts at harnessing his bodily limbs (jawāriḥ) to steer away from desir-
able objects may result, indeed, in physical abstention, yet his nafs remains
full of desire. “He says: it is all but one desire …”56 In other words: he finds
that external abstention does not eliminate the inner, psychological, desire. If
one sincerely wishes to achieve purification on the path to God, one should
withdraw inwardly from any desire. This calls for an even more unwavering
observation, for how can one get rid of the fundamental, original desire to
attain God’s nearness and be bestowed with the spiritual gifts that are associ-
ated with it? Paradoxically, this, too, is a ‘desire’. When the seeker finds that
even behind this lofty desire the nafs is at work, and that no wilful act on his
part is devoid of the nafs’s machination, he becomes powerless and perplexed
(muḍtarr ḥayrān). At the point of helplessness and despair, the seeker relin-
quishes all his aspirations and delusions of self-power and he places himself
entirely in God’s hands. “Then divine mercy reaches him, and he is granted
mercy (fa-adrakathu al-raḥma fa-ruḥima)”.57 To this al-Tirmidhī finds an
appropriate reference in Q. 27:62: “He who answers the constrained when he
calls unto Him and removes the evil and appoints you to be successors in the
earth. Is there a god with God?” (trans. Arberry, 388).
The ultimate ascetical act, it seems, is to renounce all desires and ambitions,
including the desire for abstention. This is sometimes named tark al-zuhd.
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   51
Relinquishing abstention (Tark al-zuhd, al-zuhd fī ‘l-zuhd)
In one of the earliest Ṣūfī compilations, in the chapter on zuhd in Kitāb
al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf by al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990), the fol-
lowing saying by al-Shiblī (d. 334/945) – a Baghdādī Ṣūfī associated with
­al-Junayd – is cited:

In reality, zuhd does not exist: one either abstains from what does not
belong to him – this does not count as abstention; or one abstains from what
belongs to him – what kind of abstention is this, if the object [of abstention]
is with him? There is nothing but harnessing the nafs, generosity and
­comforting the other.58

The compiler, al-Kalābādhī, adds an explanation:

He, al-Shiblī, seems to define zuhd as the relinquishing of something (tark

al-shayʾ) that [in the first place] does not belong to him; for what does not
belong to him cannot be relinquished, as it is already relinquished (li-
annahu matrūk); and what belongs to him, one cannot relinquish.

The notion of zuhd here seems to revolve around holding on or letting go of pos-
sessions. However, it suggests that ‘abstention’ is in and of itself a delusion: as
long as one associates anything with himself, it belongs to him, even if he is
intent on relinquishing it. Since in truth nothing really belongs to him – whence
abstention? Paradoxically, the low esteem with which the world and its posses-
sions – material or otherwise – are regarded, leads to a disregard for abstention
altogether. A variation on al-Shiblī’s saying, cited in al-Suhrawardī’s ʿAwārif
al-maʿārif, is more succinct and explicit: “Zuhd is heedlessness (ghafla), for
this-world is nothing, and zuhd in regards to nothing is heedlessness (al-zuhd fī
lā shayʾ ghafla).”59
Ṣūfī compilations contain many sayings and anecdotes in a similar vein. One
of the best-known illustrations of the suspicion with which Ṣūfīs regard zuhd is
found in al-Qushayrī’s Epistle. When Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī (d. mid-third/ninth
century) was asked what his experience of zuhd was at the beginning of his path,
he answered: “Zuhd has no stage (manzila)” and then elaborated:

For three days I was [in the stage of] zuhd and on the fourth day I came out
of it. On the first day I abstained from the world and everything in it; on the
second day I abstained from the hereafter; on the third day I abstained from
everything but God. On the fourth day, I remained with nothing but
God …60

And Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), in a chapter on zuhd in his al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya,
retells Abū Yazīd’s story, but modifies its conclusion with a punch line that has
become proverbial: After the third day, God asks Abū Yazīd: “What do you
52   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
want, Abū Yazīd?” and the latter answers: “I want not to want (urīdu an lā
urīda), for I am the wanted (al-murād) and you are the wanting (al-murīd).”61
Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1235), in his authoritative
compilation ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, describes the relinquishing of the individual
will and choice (tark al-irāda wal-ikhtiyār), which is suggested in the somewhat
outlandish anecdote about Abū Yazīd, as a hallmark of Ṣūfism at large. He
writes:

The people of al-Shām do not know the difference between Ṣūfism

(taṣawwuf) and poverty (faqr). They base themselves on Q. 2:273 and on the
Prophetic tradition according to which the poor will enter Paradise before
the wealthy. … The Ṣūfī, however, does not relinquish things in expectation
of a promised compensation [in the future], but in order to experience
immediate mystical states (aḥwāl mawjūda), for he is ‘the son of the
moment’ (fa-innahu ibnu waqtihi). The Ṣūfī finds blemish in [having]
choice and will, for in every state he stands according to the will of God,
not according to his own will. Hence, he does not see any merit in poverty
per se nor in wealth per se. Wherever God places him, there lies the merit,
since he looks to the permission (idhn) which God has given him to stand
where he stands.62

Al-Suhrawardī, in the last resort, emphasizes the significance of total ‘relin-

quishing’ (tark) by introducing the oxymoron al-zuhd fī ‘l-zuhd. He writes:

Abstention from abstention means to step out of making choices as regards

abstention; for the one who abstains (al-zāhid) chooses abstention and wills
it; … however, when he is placed in the station of relinquishing his will
(maqām tark al-irāda) and is stripped off of his choice (wa-insalakha min
ikhtiyārihi), God reveals to him what His will [of him] is, and then he
­relinquishes this world by what God wills, not by what his nafs wills; his
abstention then becomes by God (fa-yakūna zuhduhu bi-llāh taʿālā
ḥīnaʾidhin).63

Conclusion
Two things distinguish the attitudes of mystics in Islam from those of pious
ascetics: first, they give up fears and hopes for the future, to the point of playing
down the fear of punishment and the hope for reward in the afterlife; second,
they relinquish the illusion that the divine realm can be attained by means of
self-imposed, wilful efforts. Literary sources from as early as the second/eighth
century describe Muslim men and women stirred by a longing to seek, while still
in their earthly lives, God’s love (ḥubb), intimacy (uns) and nearness (qurb).
They also longed to gain a direct ‘knowledge of God’ (al-ʿilm bi-llāh, maʿrifa),
but discovered that such knowledge can only be bestowed, it cannot be
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   53
achieved. Nearness to God, love of God and a direct knowledge of Him became
the mystical states (aḥwāl) which described Muslim mystics since the early
beginnings. Aspirants were seeking to become ‘men of sincerity’ (ahl al-ṣidq),
men of certitude (ahl al-yaqīn) and God’s friends (awliyāʾ Allāh) – a spiritual
elite (al-khāṣṣa) distinguished from ordinary worshippers (al-ʿāmma) and also
from pietists (ahl al-taqwā) and ascetics (ahl al-zuhd). They held that as a pre-
requisite to attaining the longed-for mystical states, their interiorities must
become purified of all attachments and appetites. This meant dealing with the
egocentric ‘self’, the nafs, so that the ‘heart’ (qalb) may preside in their interior-
ities. They therefore focused their efforts on ‘cutting off their worldly attach-
ments’ (qaṭʿ al-ʿalāʾiq) and on ‘curtailing the selfish appetites’ (qaṭʿ
al-shahawāt). They often named these efforts ‘abstention’ or ‘renunciation’ of
the world (al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā), but rather than putting emphasis on extroverted
social or religious phenomena, zuhd (also zahāda) denoted for them a stage – a
preliminary stage – in the long process of self-transformation. Though aspirants
exerted themselves voluntarily to effortful acts and practices, which extended
beyond the prescriptions of the religious law, they knew that these acts were not
the means whereby the higher rungs of self-transformation would be reached.
Voluntary efforts, distinguished from the prescribed duties (ʿibādāt) incumbent
on all believers, were designated nawāfil. The special effortful programme was
designated ‘combat with the lower-self’ (mujāhada, jihād al-nafs) or ‘the training
of the lower-self’ (riyāḍāt al-nafs). The objective of such programme was to
allow the dark forces governing human nature to transform into luminous ener-
gies; this luminosity heralded the desired mystical existence beyond will and
choice. Shaqīq al-Balkhī, one of the earliest authors, named the light ensuing
from such efforts ‘the light of abstention’ (nūr al-zuhd); to him, as well as to
most early and late mystics, this term signified an inner state rather than any
outer manifestation.
Ultimately, and paradoxically – as can be seen in Abū Yazīd’s statement
cited above64 – since abstention and renunciation are wilful acts, and personal
‘will’ (irāda) stems from the nafs, the Muslim mystics tried to relinquish even
‘abstention’ and to live by God’s choice for them.65

Notes
  1 Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (eds), Asceticism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), xix.
  2 See Peter J. Awn, “Sensuality and Mysticism – The Islamic Tradition”, in Asceticism,
eds Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995), 369–71.
  3 See Christopher Melchert, “Early Renunciants as Ḥadīth Transmitters”, The Muslim
World 92 (2002): 407.
  4 Geneviève Gobillot lists thirty-seven titles “dating from the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th centu-
ries” dealing with various aspects of world-renunciation (al-zuhd fī ‘l-dunyā) and con-
taining the term zuhd (and raqāʾiq) – “Zuhd”, Encyclopaedia of Islam2, online 2015.
  5 Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Zuhd wal-raqāʾiq, ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī (Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1386 h), 177 §508.
54   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
  6 Al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-Zuhd al-kabīr, ed. ʿĀmir Aḥmad Ḥaydar (Beirut: Dār al-Jinān:
Muʾassasat al-Kutub al-Thaqāfīya, 1987), 133, 245.
  7 See, for example, al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Bāb ithbāt ʿilm al-bāṭin), eds ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm
Maḥmūd and Ṭaha ʿAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥadītha, 1960), 43–4.
  8 The adjective ‘ascetic’ derives from the ancient Greek term askēsis, which means
‘training’ or ‘exercise’. The original usage did not refer to self-denial, but to the phys-
ical training required for athletic events. Its usage later extended to rigorous practices
used in many major religious traditions, in varying degrees, to attain redemption and
higher spirituality.
– see Paul A.B. Clarke and Andrew Linzey (eds), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and
Society (London: Routledge Reference, 1996), 58.
  9 On Shaqīq al-Balkhī’s nūr al-zuhd, see Chapter 8, Conclusion; see also, in greater
detail, Chapter 8.
10 See, for example, Atif Khalil and Shiraz Sheikh:
One of Goldziher’s more important and lasting contributions to the development of
Sufi studies in the West, however, was the distinction he pressed between the asceti-
cism of the formative period and of the mysticism which followed it, between zuhd
and taṣawwuf.
Atif Khalil and Shiraz Sheikh, “Editorial Introduction: Sufism in Western Scholarship,
a Brief Overview”, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 43 (2014): 5.
11 See Chapter 1 in this monograph.
12 See Nimrod Hurvitz, “Biographies and Mild Asceticism: A Study of Islamic Moral
Imagination”, Studia Islamica 85 (1997): 41–65; also, Leah Kinberg, “What Is Meant
by Zuhd”, Studia Islamica 61 (1985), 27–44.
13 On the ‘synergy’ implied in ḥadīth al-nawāfil, see Chapter 11 in this monograph; see
also Michael Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants of the Prophet: al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Ibn
al-ʿArabī and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ on Ahl al-Bayt”, in L’Ésotérisme shiʿite, ses racines et
ses prolongements, ed. M.A. Amir-Moezzi (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 539–71.
14 Ibn Ḥanbal, Kitāb al-zuhd, ed. M.J. Sharaf (Beirut: Dār al-nahḍa al-ʿarabiyya, 1981),
41; Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Qiṣar al-amal, ed. Muḥammad Khayr Ramaḍān Yūsuf (Beirut:
Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 19972), 25; Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Zuhd wal-raqāʾiq, 5 §13.
15 St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Lazarus Moore (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1959), Sections 3, 6, 8, 21 and 29; see also Peter Brown, The
Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993 [1978])
88, 126; Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Pro-
motion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2002), 25, 36 et passim; Roberta C. Bondi, “The Spirituality of Syriac-Speaking
Christians”, in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, eds Bernard
McGinn et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 152–61.
16 See Elaine H. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 138ff.;
Birger A. Pearson, “The Book of Allogenes and Sethian Gnosticism”, in Gnosticism,
Platonism and the Late Ancient World. Essays in honour of John D. Turner, eds
Kevin Corrigan and Tuomas Rasimus (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 105–16; William Wright
(trans.), Apocryphal Texts of the Apostles: The Acts of Judas Thomas, Vol. 2
(London: Williams and Norgate, 1871), 238ff.
17 For Manichean ascetic practices and attitudes, see, for example, Arthur Vööbus,
History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient: A Contribution to the History of Culture
in the Near East. Vol. 1: The Origin of Asceticism and Early Monasticism in Persia
(Leuven: Secrétariat du CSCO, 1958), Vol. 1, 115–24; for abundant material on the
Iranian religious landscape in Early Islam, see Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets
of Early Islamic Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
18 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, 17.
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism  55
19 Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, passim; also, Tor Andrae, Les Origines de
I’lslam et le Christianisme, trans. J. Roche (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1955), espe-
cially the rich material pertaining to instructions given by Christian monks to Islamic
‘seekers’ after truth, often referred to as ḥunafāʾ (sg. ḥanīf); Krisztina Szilagyi,
“Muḥammad and the Monk: The Making of the Christian Baḥīrā Legend”, Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008): 169–214. See also Abū Bakr b. ʿĀṣim
al-Shaybānī, Kitāb al-jihād, ed. Musāʿid b. Sulaymān (al-Madīna: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm
wa ‘l-Ḥikam, 1409 h), Vol. 1, 186.
20 See Szilagyi, “Muḥammad and the Monk”; see also, Barbara Roggema, The Legend
of Sergius Baḥīrā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to
Islam: History of Christian–Muslim Relations 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 58ff.; see also
Chapter 3 in this monograph, [n. 48].
21 See Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ (Beirut: Dār al-
kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997), Vol. 1, 250–2.
22 See Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 23, 26, 32 et passim.
23 See S.P. Brock, “Early Syrian Asceticism”, in Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity
(Ashgate: Variorum Reprint, 1984), 3ff.; Vööbus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian
Orient, Vol. 1, 115ff.; Derwas J. Chitty, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the
Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire (Crestwood:
S.V.S. Press, 1995), 123ff.; Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism
and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999),
14–42.
24 Muqātil Ibn Sulaymān, Tafsīr Muqātil Ibn Sulaymān, Vol. 1, ed. Aḥmad Farīd
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2003), 317–18; see also Chapter 3 in this volume.
25 Cf. a milder version in al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, Vol. 1, 151 (338), according to
which Ibn Maẓʿūn’s wife complained that her husband neglected his duties to her, for
“he prays during the night and fasts during the day (ammā ‘l-layl fa-qāʾim wa-ammā
‘l-nahār fa-ṣāʾim)”. The Prophet scolded him saying: “Do you not take me as your
model (amā laka bī uswa)?”; see also ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs,
al-bāb al-ʿāshir, faṣl fī dhikr aḥādīth tubayyinu khaṭaʾahum fī afʿālihim (Alexandria:
Dār Ibn Khaldūn, [1985]), 223.
26 See Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The Formative Period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007), 36; C.C. Sahner, “ ‘The Monasticism of my Community is
Jihād’: A Debate on Asceticism, Sex, and Warfare in Early Islam”, Arabica 64
(2017), 161, 166 and 169.
27 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ: Bāb al-nahy ʿan ṣawm al-dahr; al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, Vol. 1,
353ff. (43); Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs, 144–5.
28 Al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, Vol. 1, 244–5 (603–4).
29 For the use of this term and a detailed presentation of its features, especially in the
Ḥanbalī school as regards food, see Hurvitz, “Biographies and Mild Asceticism”.
30 See Kinberg, “What Is Meant by Zuhd”; see also, Chapter 1 in this monograph.
31 Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Qiṣar al-amal, ed. Muḥammad Khayr Ramaḍān Yūsuf, 42 §32.
32 See Sara Sviri, “Mysticism in Early Islam: The Pre-Compilations Phase”, in Rout-
ledge Handbook on Early Islam, ed. Herbert Berg (London: Routledge, 2018), 244.
33 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 54–9; Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage ­mystique:
nouvel essai sur le lexique technique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-
Machreq, 1970), 213–31.
34 This is a central topic in this monograph: see, for example, Chapters 1, 8 and the
Introduction.
35 See Paul Nwyia (ed.), Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musulmans: Šaqīq al-Balh̆
ī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1973); for a detailed analysis of Shaqīq’s
treatise, see Chapter 8 in this monograph.
56   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
36 Shaqīq al-Balkhī, “Ādāb al-ʿibādāt”, in ed. Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites des mystiques
Musulmans, 20.
37 Ibid., 21.
38 Ibid.
39 Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999), 275ff.
40 See Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 171; Louis Massignon, Essay on
the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 211.
41 I choose to maintain the grammatical gender of nafs in the feminine as in Arabic. Ṣūfī
understanding of the different types of ‘self’ should not be confused with the philo-
sophical classification of the ‘anima’, a classification that derives from Plato and
Aristotle – for more on this, see in Chapter 8.
42 See al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-Zuhd al-kabīr, ed. ʻĀmir Aḥmad Ḥaydar, 157, 343; and also
163: “The combatant is he who fights his self (al-mujāhid man jāhada nafsahu)”; see
more, Chapter 8 in this monograph.
43 Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla, ed. Khalīl al-Manṣūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,
2001), 79.
44 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ (Bāb maqām al-zuhd), 1960, 72.
45 For a detailed list of studies concerning al-Muḥāsibī, see Gavin Picken, Spiritual
Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muḥāsibī (New York: Routledge,
2012), 2–13; for a detailed list of his works, see 67–122.
46 Al-Muḥāsibī, Sharḥ al-maʿrifa wa-badhl al-naṣīḥa, ed. Majdī Fatḥī al-Sayyid (Tanta:
Dār al-Ṣaḥāba, 1413 h), 37–8.
47 The reference is probably to one of the Gospels; on Christian references in
al-Muḥāsibī, see Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam, 2, 5; Josef van Ess, Die
Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Universität Bonn, 1961), 27–8; see also
Chapter 13 in this monograph.
48 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wal-jawāriḥ, ed. Khalīl ʿImrān al-Manṣūr
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2000), 10.
49 Al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭāʾ (Beirut:
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, n.d.), 41. For a detailed discussion on ‘false asceticism’, see
Chapter 3 in this monograph.
50 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl fī maʿrifat aḥādīth al-rasūl, ed. Ismāʿīl
Ibrāhīm ʿAwaḍ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Bukhārī, 2008), Chapter 5, 40; also Chapter 3 in
this monograph.
51 For a fuller citation of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, see Riyāḍāt al-nafs, ed. Ibrāhīm Shams
al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2005), 29–39; also Chapter 8 in this
monograph.
52 For the ḥadīth “inna al-nār ḥuffat bil-shahawāt”, see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et
indice de la tradition Musulmane (Leiden: Brill, 1933–1969), Vol. 1, 479; also
al-Kharrāz, Kitāb al-ṣidq, ed. A.J. Arberry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937),
62; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, in Drei Schriften des Theosophen von
Tirmiḏ, ed. Bernd Radtke (Beirut: Steiner, 1992), 145, 183.
53 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Riyāḍāt al-nafs, ed. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-
kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2005), 32.
54 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 5 §10.
55 Ibid., 2–3 §5.
56 Ibid., §6.
57 Ibid., 15.
58 See Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-taʿarruf, li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, ed.
A.J. Arberry (Cairo: Maktabat al-saʿāda, 1352/1933), Ch. 36, 65.
 Zuhd in Islamic mysticism   57
59 Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī, ʻAwārif al-maʿārif, eds ʿA.Ḥ.
Maḥmūd and M. Ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, n.d.), 283.
60 Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 38.
61 Ibn al-ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, ed. ʿUthmān I. Yahya (Cairo: al Hayʾa
al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma lil-kitāb, 1972), Vol. 3, 319.
62 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 38.
63 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, eds ʿA.Ḥ. Maḥmūd and M. Ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo:
Dār al-maʿārif, n.d.), 283.
64 “I want not to want (urīdu an lā urīda), for I am the wanted (al-murād) and you are
the wanting (al-murīd)” – see note 61 above.
65 See Sara Sviri, “Effort and Effortless Path”, in The Taste of Hidden Things (Inverness,
CA: Golden Sufi Center, 1997), Ch. 2, 23–45; also index: ‘iḍṭirār’.
3 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā
Monasticism and asceticism – false
and sincere1

Introduction
In the following pages, I examine attitudes towards asceticism and monasticism in
Early Islam. First, I observe how, according to Muslim hermeneutical sources,
Christian monasticism originated. This observation is bound up with a Qurʾānic
verse that contains the often-pondered words, wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā (“And
monasticism they invented”). Second, I observe how the understanding of these
words had been associated with views, in particular in early mystical writings, con-
cerning ascetical manifestations in Early Islam. My starting point in exploring the
reflection of monasticism (rahbāniyya) and asceticism (zuhd) in the writings of early
Muslim mystics is an intriguing chapter in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s Nawādir al-uṣūl.
In Chapter 5 of this extraordinary ­collection of ‘rare’ (or ‘precious’) traditions,
al-Tirmidhī starts off by discussing the prohibition of the practice of qazaʿ
(‘tonsure’), that is, the forbidding of shaving off parts of the hair in the manner of
Christian monks.2 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s elaboration in this chapter on such
monastic and ascetic insignia as qazaʿ ­(tonsure) is part and parcel of his more
general critique of external manifestations of ascetical practices at large. Pursuing his
criticism, I reconsider, here as in other chapters of this monograph, the often-
repeated paradigm, according to which mysticism in Islam emerged only after ascet-
icism (zuhd). It is conventionally suggested that zuhd came about as a reaction to the
affluence and power gained by the Muslim rule during its early period, and that it
was only later and gradually that ‘mysticism’ (generically known as taṣawwuf)
evolved. In fact, early records draw a different picture in which, during this early
period, a complex amalgam of zuhdī attitudes and patterns coexisted along mystical
trends. Obviously, one should bear in mind that in its earliest presence Islamic mys-
ticism was not named Ṣūfism, and that early mystics were not named ṣūfīs.3 More-
over – and this may be one cause for confusion – in some places it was the ascetics
(zuhhād), who were named ṣūfīs in reference to the rough woollen garments that
they used to wear, either in protest of the luxurious garments of the wealthy and
powerful, or due to their wish to emulate hermits and prophets. Some of them might
have behaved in an extreme mode, reacting, at times violently, against rulers and
judges, to the extent that some scholars deem them ‘anarchists’.4 In some places,
those referred to as zuhhād, were wandering beggars. Some authors, like al-Ḥakīm
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   59
al-Tirmidhī and al-Muḥāsibī before him, who were adorned only retrospectively
with the title ṣūfī, criticized these ascetics for being lazy parasites taking advantage
of the public’s generosity. Finally, there were also those who, by curtailing their
appetites in an ascetical manner, were training their ‘selves’ (nufūs) to search God’s
nearness in modesty and humbleness. They were often referred to as fuqarāʾ (poor)
or sālikūn (seekers on a path) in Ṣūfī literature, two of the terms by which ‘seekers’
were named prior to the adoption of the term ṣūfī for mystics.5
The prophetic prohibition of the practice of qazaʿ can be found in many Ḥadith
collections, among them also canonical ones.6 This interdiction is undoubtedly
associated with the encounter of the Muslim warriors with Christian monks and
with their peculiar practices. Some sources, including Nawādir al-uṣūl, relate that
Abū Bakr, the first Caliph, upon sending his troops to al-Shām, informed the war-
riors that among the inhabitants there, they would meet people who had shut them-
selves in cells (aqwām ḥabasū anfusahum fī ‘l-ṣawāmiʿ) and others, in the middle
of whose hair Satan had made bird-nests (ittakhadha al-shayṭān fī awsāṭ ruʾūsihim
afḥāṣan).7 Clearly, Abū Bakr was referring to two kinds of Christian monks that
could be met with in Syria: cell-dwellers and monks with tonsures. As for the first
kind, the warriors were to call upon them to accept Islam but be lenient with them;
as for the second kind, they were to be killed. For al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, the leni-
ency offered to the first kind was due to their sincere worship, despite their errone-
ous religious loyalties (kānū ṣādiqīna fī sabīlihim wa-in kānū ʿalā ḍalāla). The
second kind, however, did not merit any concessions since by ‘making ­bird-nests
in their hair’ they merely wished to show off by exhibiting the marks of worship
(ʿalāmatan li-anfusihim wa-tashhīran wa-iẓhāran limā hum ʿalayhi).8
For al-Tirmidhī, these traditions are the platform from which to explore the dual
typology of ‘monasticism’ and, by analogy, also of ‘asceticism’ at large. His
exploration is not historical. It is borne out of his criticism of the ascetics of his time
(mutazahhidat azmāninā) and revolves around what he saw as the two types into
which they fall: a genuine, sincere type, characterized by humbleness and inward-
ness, versus a false one, characterized by exhibitionism and the desire for public
praise. Accordingly, al-Tirmidhī makes the following statement: “This [false] kind
[of monks] is on a par (bi-manzila) with those in this period who take on asceticism
(tazahhada) without being sincere about it ­(wa-huwa ghayr ṣādiq fī dhālika)”.9 He
goes on to describe the external features of these pseudo-ascetics “of his time” and
their distinctive insignia and concludes that these features portray a false type of
­so-called ascetics, whose sheer desire is to gain the vanities of the world (fa-hādhihi
ʿalāmāt al-ṭabaqa al-kādhiba al-mutazahhida al-mutaʾakkila ḥuṭām al-dunyā).

Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā: Q. 57:27

Al-Tirmidhī gives voice to his criticism of the false zuhd throughout his
­writings; it is in Chapter 5 of the Nawādir that he connects his views to the
Qurʾānic verse 57:27. This verse runs as follows:
Then We sent, following in their footsteps, Our messengers; and We sent,
following, Jesus son of Mary, and gave unto him the gospel. And We set in
60   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
the hearts of those who followed him tenderness (raʾfa) and mercy
(wa-raḥma). And monasticism (wa-rahbāniyyatan), they invented – We did
not prescribe it for them – only seeking the good pleasure of God; But they
observed it not as it should be observed. So, We gave those of them who
believed their wage, and many of them are ungodly.10

This translation is of A.J. Arberry’s. That it reflects the prevalent reading, at least
among Ṣūfī commentators, can be gleaned from al-Qushayrī’s “Testament for
Novices”, the concluding chapter of his Epistle. Al-Qushayrī draws an analogy,
implied, for him, in Q. 57:27, between the over ambitious disciple and those
referred to in the verse, who ‘invented’ a self-imposed piety. Al-Qushayrī writes:

The disciple should not, as far as possible, make promises to God out of his
own choosing, for within the duties of the religious law there lie all that the
disciple is capable of. Hence, describing certain people, God has said: “And
as for monasticism – they had invented it …” (wa-lā yanbaghī lil-murīd an
yuʿāhida Allāha taʿālā ʿalā shayʾ bi-ikhtiyārihi mā amkanahu fa-inna fī
lawāzim al-sharʿ mā yastawfī minhu kullu wusʿin. Qāla Allāh fī ṣifat qawm:
“wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā …” ).11

For Ṣūfī masters, a ‘self-imposed’ piety stems out of ‘wilful choice’ (ikhtiyār);
and ‘wilful choice’ is analogous to ‘invention’ (ibtidāʿ).
A different reading is also possible. Louis Massignon, in an attempt to show
that in Early Islam Christian monasticism was seen as divinely ordained, offers a
translation, according to which wa-rahbāniyyatan functions, syntactically, as a
third direct object of the verb jaʿalnā, conjoined to raʾfa and raḥma, thus:

Then … Jesus, son of Mary; and We gave him the gospel, and in the hearts
of those who followed him We placed (jaʿalnā) (the seeds of) readiness to
forgive (raʾfa), compassion (raḥma), and the monastic life (rahbāniyya). It
was they who instituted it …12

Indeed, the verse appears to contain a ‘double message’, which could be rendered
in either of the two ways presented above: on the one hand, it favourably depicts
the followers of Jesus (ʿĪsā) as people in whose hearts God set “tenderness and
mercy”; on the other hand, it presents ‘monasticism’ as something which “they
invented” (ibtadaʿūhā) or “instituted”,13 something which God “did not prescribe
for them”. Furthermore, the words “But they observed it not as it should be
observed” may raise the question why God criticizes them for not observing “as it
should be observed” that which, in the first place, they had invented or instituted.
According to some commentators, among them al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, this ostens-
ible ‘double message’, brought to bear in the above quoted translations, reflects the
‘double aspect’ inherent in the features of monasticism and asceticism at large.
In Massignon’s reading, the monastic life was not invented by the followers
of Jesus; it was placed in their hearts by God himself, although it was they who
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   61
‘instituted’ it. In his Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique
Musulmane,14 Massignon argues that “this verse was unanimously interpreted by
the exegetes of the first three centuries as giving permission and praise [to monasti-
cism]”,15 whereas, according to him, “A tendentious interpretation, too easily
accepted by contemporary orientalists, made the verse into a confirmation of the
pejorative, restrictive [and later] ḥadīth: lā rahbānīyat a fī `l-islām (‘There is no
monasticism in Islam’)”, as well as “the attenuated version”: inna rahbānīyata
ummatī al-jihād (‘The monasticism of my community is the holy war’)”.16 Edmund
Beck, in “Das christliche Mönchtum im Koran”,17 also attempts to demonstrate –
by way of inter-Qurʾānic commentary, mainly concerning linguistic issues18 – that
in his Medinan period Muḥammad appreciated Christian monasticism as a noble
religious ideal, stemming from devout piety, yet practically incongruent with man’s
physical and psychological weaknesses, and therefore not prescribed by Divine
decree. In Beck’s opinion, not even the ideal of celibacy was excluded from
Muḥammad’s idealistic approval of monasticism. In this way, Beck endeavoured to
reconcile the tone of reproach implied in our verse by the term ibtadaʿūhā – “they
invented (it)” and by wa-mā raʿawhā ḥaqqa riʿāyatihā, “they observed it not as it
should be observed”, where the positive attitude is implied in the words illā
ibtighāʾa riḍwāni ‘llāh, “only seeking the good pleasure of God”. Beck found
support for this understanding by other verses that express positive sentiments
towards Christian monks, for example, Q. 5:82–83. Accordingly, in his transliteration
of this passage, Beck explicitly interprets rahbānīyatan as syntactically conjoined to
raʾfa and raḥma, that is, as a third direct object to the verb jaʿalnā.19 In keeping
with this attitude, therefore, both Massignon and Beck construe this verse as
­displaying a syntactical direct object relationship between jaʿalnā fī qulūbihim
“We set in their hearts” and rahbānīyatan “monasticism”. However, this is not the
reading suggested by most Sunnī commentators, one of the earliest among whom is
Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, a second/eighth-century commentator (d. 150/767).20
It was Paul Nwiya who, in his Exégèse coranique et langage mystique,21
showed that a pejorative understanding of this verse could be traced to an earlier
date than suggested by Massignon (and also by Beck). He cuts the ground from
under Massignon’s chronological argumentation by bringing to bear the remarks
of Muqātil, the second/eighth-century commentator, to the verse under discussion.
In his commentary, Muqātil suggests plainly a clear syntactical distinction
between raʾfatan wa-raḥmatan, the two direct objects to the predicative phrase
jaʿalnā fī qulūbi alladhīna ittabaʿūhu, that is, Jesus, and rahbānīyatan, which
stands in apposition to the enclitic pronoun -hā in ibtadʿū-hā. This he does by
introducing the formulaic expression thumma istaʾnafa al-kalām, “then He
resumed His speech”, thus clearly suggesting the introduction of a new sentence.22
This somewhat formalistic insistence upon syntactical distinctions is obvi-
ously crucial to the semantics of the question under discussion, since there lies a
deep emotive and conceptual gap between the idea – portrayed by the verb
jaʿalnā … – of monasticism having been granted to the followers of Jesus by
God’s grace, and the idea – conveyed by the verb ibtadaʿūhā – of monasticism
having been created and institutionalized by the followers themselves.23
62   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
Nwiya buttresses his argumentation against Massignon’s position with
a­ dditional evidence from Muqātil’s tafsīr, namely, this author’s commentaries to
verses Q. 5:85 and Q. 5:87. His commentary to the latter is of special signifi-
cance for our inquiry, since it relates to a verse which is itself suggestive: yā
ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū lā tuḥarrimū ṭayyibāt mā aḥalla Allāhu lakum, “O,
believers, forbid not such good things as God has permitted you”. What does
this have to do with monasticism and asceticism? Surely, there is a call here,
possibly a reaction to some extreme ascetical phenomena, to abandon practices
which deny the “good things” permitted by the divine law.
In his commentary to Q. 5:85–87, Muqātil relates a tradition concerning ten of
Muḥammad’s most intimate companions, among them ʿAlī, ʿUmar, Ibn Masʿūd,
Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, Salmān al-Fārisī, Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān and others, who
assembled at the house of ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn, and together resolved to deny
themselves food, garments and women. They also undertook to emasculate them-
selves, put on the monastic garb of hair, erect solitary cells (ṣawmaʿa), and to take
up the monastic life (fa-yatarahhabū fīhā). This austere resolve was miraculously
revealed to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel, Jibrīl, so he hastily went to ʿUthmān’s
house. Not finding him there, he left the following message with his wife: “Tell
your husband when he comes, that he who does not adhere to my sunna and does
not follow my fashion does not belong to me … Our sunna is (wearing) clothes,
(eating) food and (having) women …” When the Prophet’s admonition was
delivered to him, ʿUthmān exclaimed: “How wondrous that the Prophet should
know what we have said; let us relinquish that which the Prophet dislikes …”24
This early anecdote clearly invalidates Massignon’s hypothesis that it was
only after the third/ninth century that anti-monastic tendencies found their way
into the interpretation of this verse. The tradition cited by Muqātil is well
attested in Muslim historical and exegetical sources, as well as in the canonical
ḥadīth literature.25 In some of them it is connected with the ḥadīth “Monasticism
was not prescribed upon us” (inna al-rahbāniyya lam tuktab ʿalaynā).26 This is
evidently a paraphrase of the expression mā katabnāhā ʿalayhim of our verse; a
paraphrase which alludes to the difference between Christianity and Islam with
regard to monasticism, and, by implication, also condemns this way of life.
The various formulae of this so-called ‘anti-monastic’ precept used in the
literature of the third/ninth century, such as: innī lam ūmar bil-rahbāniyya
(al-Dārimī, d. 255/869);27 inna Allāha lam yabʿathnī bil-rahbāniyya (Ibn Saʿd, d.
230/845),28 lā āmurukum an takūnū qissīsīna wa-ruhbān (al-Ṭabarī, d.
310/923),29 laysa fī dīnī tark al-nisāʾ wal-laḥm wa-lā ittikhādh al-ṣawāmiʿ
(al-Ṭabarī),30 – all these point to the challenging response to a trend, which must
have existed earlier than, say, Ibn Saʿd.31 It seems more than plausible that the
exegetical narrative concerning ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn, which addresses Q. 5:87,
bears grains of historical reality: one can conceive of the existence of a trend
within the early Muslim community of adopting the Christian mode of extreme
self-denial as the perfect path of salvation, out of sincere religious devotion and
fear of the Hereafter. Consequently, the opposition to this trend, attributed to
Muḥammad, whichever way it was phrased, should also be considered as early.32
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   63
The typological number of “ten companions”, and the list of names comprising
ʿAlī, ʿUmar, Ibn Masʿūd and some of the renowned ascetics of the first genera-
tion, such as Abū Dharr, however, should be considered apocryphal.
In support of Nwiya’s criticism of Massignon’s chronological hypothesis, I
adduce here two additional early sources which imply a critique of extreme
asceticism. First, two lines of poetry by al-Kumayt ibn Zayd (d. 126/743), an
anti-Umayyad Zaydī poet.33 He writes:

[38] wa-ʿaybun li-ahli ‘l-dīni baʿda thabātihi ilā muḥdathātin laysa ʿanhā
al-tanaqqulu
[39] kamā ibtadaʿa al-ruhbānu mā lam yajiʾ bihi kitābun wa-lā waḥyun mina
‘llāhi munzalu34
[38] It is blameworthy for people of religion, after it has been established, to
drift into innovations which are not part of it
[39] Similarly the monks invented what was not prescribed by scripture, nor
revealed by inspiration from God.

Verse no. 39 is clearly an early poetical paraphrase of the Qurʾānic wa-rahbānīyatan

ibtadaʿūhā, taking for granted this reading with all its implications.35
My second allusion is to ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), who, in his
Kitāb al-Jihād, records the following traditions:

1 Every community has its monasticism; the monasticism of my community

is the holy war for the sake of God (li-kulli ummat in rahbānīyat un,
wa-rahbānīyat u hādhihi al-ummat i al-jihād u fī sabīl i Allāh i).
2 Someone mentioned roving monasticism (al-siyāḥa) in front of the Prophet.
The Prophet said: “God gave us in its stead the holy war for His sake and
the takbīr on every hill (abdalanā Allāhu bidhālika al-jihāda fī sabīl i Allāhi
wal-takbīr a ʿala kull i sharaf in)”.36

These pieces of evidence, which can be regarded as no later than the mid-sec-
ond/eighth century, along with the evidence from Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, point
clearly that there existed an early anti-monastic trend, which may reflect militant
voices within the nascent Muslim community.

Exegetical narratives
Having established, contrary to Massignon’s and Beck’s hypothesis, the existence
of an early Islamic trend against Christian monasticism, we return to Muqātil’s
commentary of Q. 57:27. There we find a narrative describing the birth of monasti-
cism, a narrative which will be picked up again by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī in
Chapter 5 of his Nawādir (on which see Two types of monasticism section below).
This narrative, of which the earliest source known to me is indeed Muqātil ibn
Sulaymān, describes the emergence of Christian monasticism in relation with
events that took place after the ascension of Jesus. Commenting upon the phrase
wa-rahbānīyat an ibtadaʿūhā, Muqātil tells:
64   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
After ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, the number of polytheists (al-mushrikūn) increased;
they defeated the believers (al-muʾminīn) and humiliated them, so they
withdrew (iʿtazalū) and took to cells (ṣawāmiʿ). They stayed like this for a
long time, so much so that some of them digressed from the religion of
Jesus (dīn ʿĪsā) and invented Christianity [!] (wa-ibtadaʿū al-naṣrāniya).
Hence God said: “And monasticism (wa-rahbāniyyat an) they invented”;
they practiced celibacy as worship (tabattalū fīhā lil-ʿibāda); “We did not
prescribe it for them (mā katabnāhā ʿalayhim)”. “[What We prescribed
was] seeking God’s good will (illā ibtighāʾa riḍwāni ‘llāh)” “but they
observed it not as it should be observed” (fa-mā raʿawhā ḥaqqa riʿāyatihā)” –
i.e., they did not observe that which I had commanded them; they did not
obey me and did wrong when they became Jews and Christians (ḥīna
tahawwadū wa-tanaṣṣarū). Some of them, however, remained faithful to
the religion of Jesus (wa-aqāma nās minhum ʿalā dīn ʿĪsā ʿalayhi al-salām)
until they reached the time of Muḥammad (ḥattā adrakū Muḥammad an ṣallā
Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallama) and believed in him. These were forty men –
thirty-two from Abyssinia and eight from Syria. They are those concerning
whom God said: “So We gave those of them who believed their wage”
(wa-ātaynā alladhīna āmanū ajrahum) … “and many of them are ungodly”,
i.e. those who became Jews and Christians (yaʿnī alladhīna tahawwadū
wa-tanaṣṣarū). God gave those people of the Gospel who believed in
Muḥammad (man āmana bi-Muḥammad min ahl i ‘l-injīl) their wage twice –
for their belief in the first book and in the book of Muḥammad (bi-īmānihim
bil-kitāb al-awwal wa-kitāb Muḥammad).37

Reading Muqātil’s commentary, some questions come to mind: first, the puzz-
ling equation of rahbāniyya with naṣrāniyya. Also: Who were the forty men
who remained faithful to dīn ʿĪsā, and in due course came to believe in
Muḥammad? Lastly: Who, then, were the people who invented Christianity/
monasticism? Could they possibly have been the polytheists? In order to answer
the last question, it should be noted that in the background of this commentary
lies the concept of al-dīn al-ḥanīf, that is, the true and original religion of Abra-
ham given to all true prophets; each prophet in his turn verifies (yuṣaddiqu) the
teaching of the previous one. ʿĪsā’s genuine teaching, therefore, was to corrobo-
rate the true teaching, which, eventually, would be sealed and concluded with
Muḥammad’s prophecy. From its ‘invented’ abrogation (tabdīl, taḥrīf), both
Christianity and Judaism emerged.38
Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), in his comprehensive exegesis Jāmiʿ al-bayān,
records versions of a similar narrative which may throw some light on these
questions and help identify the “inventors” of Christianity and monasticism.
Al-Ṭabarī’s sources for these versions are distinguished companions, such as Ibn
ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd, as well as his near-contemporary biographer
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845). Cumulatively, these versions describe how,
during the period intervening between Jesus and Muḥammad, the true believers
were outnumbered and defeated by the polytheists (ahl al-shirk). In the face of
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   65
persecution by the “kings” ruling over the polytheists, these true believers were
looking for ways to survive and preserve the true faith. Thus, they asked permission
to withdraw from the kings’ territory – either to caves (iʿtazalū fī ‘l-ghīrān); or
on top of pillars (usṭuwāna); or to the deserts as homeless wanderers; or to
distant cloisters (duyūr). These survival methods were termed rahbāniyya, and it
is concerning these persecuted believers and their invented survival methods that
the verse came down. These methods were devised under duress in order to hold
on to the true belief of the Tawrāh and the Injīl and preserve it. Eventually,
however, the story goes, some of them became infidels (ḥattā kafarat ṭāʾifa
minhum) and embraced ‘innovation’, namely, monasticism, Christianity and
Judaism (wa-akhadhū bil-bidʿa wa-bil-naṣrāniya wa-bil-yahūdiya). Others held
on to dīn ʿĪsā until the advent of Muḥammad.39 This, then, is the bidʿa: the
­distortion of the beliefs and the religious teachings contained in the genuine
scriptures, as well as a false kind of rahbāniyya.40
The course of events implicit in this exegetical narrative is, therefore, the
following:

1 Persecution of true believers by polytheists and their ‘kings’;

2 The true believers go underground by devising specific withdrawal
methods;
3 In time, three types of deviation (apostasy) appear: monasticism, Christianity,
and Judaism;
4 Nevertheless, a paltry of sincere believers remain in their hiding places,
faithful to the religion of Jesus, until Muḥammad appears. Upon his arrival,
they come out and join the faithful.

It would seem plausible from the context of this interpretation, to construe bidʿa as
a blameworthy form of monasticism: that of the apostates. This is contrasted with
the believers’ “withdrawal into caves”, which, under persecution, is deemed above
reproach. Thus, monasticism seems to be distinguished from both Christianity and
Judaism, although all three are considered a type of apostasy from the true religion
of Jesus. Unlike Muqātil, Ṭabarī does not imply that Christianity was invented by
polytheists, but rather by the apostates. In both commentaries, however, a clear
distinction is made between Christianity and the true religion of Jesus.
This distinction may, in fact, be attested in as early a source as the Qurʾān
itself, in which polemics against the three contemporary Christian sects seem to
be reflected.41 From the standpoint of the Qurʾānic Christology, it is more than
likely that Melkites, Nestorians and Monophysites should be regarded as here-
tics and apostates of the true religion of the prophet Jesus. Though the notion of
a series of prophets giving credence to one another is inherent in Islam since its
nascence,42 the interrelation between these notions and the monastic way of life
is by no means self-evident.
This brings us back to the following question: Who were the forty men who,
according to Muqātil, had been faithful to Jesus, and eventually also believed in
Muḥammad? The answer is supplied by Muqātil himself. Commenting on Q. 5:82,
66   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
where favourable comments are made about “priests and monks” – qissīsīna
wa-ruhbān – Muqātil writes:

… pious worshippers (mutaʿabbidīna), those who dwell in cells (asḥāb

al-ṣawāmiʿ) … This verse came down concerning forty men from among
the believers of the people of the Gospel (min muʾminī ahl i ʾl-injīl) thirty-
two of them came from Abyssinia with Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, and eight came
from Syria, among them Baḥīrā the Hermit … Upon hearing the Qurʾān
recited by the Prophet they wept and gave credence to God and His
Messenger …43

Thus the forty men to whom, according to Muqātil, verses 5:82 and 57:27
refer, were those monks who were sincere believers in both Jesus and
Muḥammad. Not all monks are true believers of dīn ʿĪsā!
Harmonizing Muqātil’s version with al-Ṭabarī’s, we may conjecture that:

a Naṣrāniyya is related to rahbāniyya insofar as both were arbitrary innova-

tions by either polytheists or apostates of Jesus’ true religion;
b There existed, however, a benevolent type of rahbāniyya, which kept to and
preserved the true religion of Jesus;
c This benevolent rahbāniyya, to which al-Ṭabarī refers loosely as those who
practised “withdrawal in caves (iʿtizāl fī-l-ghīrān)”, had produced, accord-
ing to Muqātil, the forty “monks and priests”, those pious cell-dwellers,
who believed in both Jesus and Muḥammad.

Two types of monasticism

A curious hermeneutical narrative to wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā, occurring in
the Nawādir al-uṣūl of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,44 raises some intriguing questions
as to a possible non-Islamic layer, or layers, interwoven into the Muslim ḥadīth
relating to this topic. This exegetical narrative runs as follows:

Ibn ʿAbbās, may God be pleased with him, said: After ʿĪsā ibn Maryam,
peace be upon him, there were kings who distorted the Torah and the Gospel.
Then people said to their kings: “We find no abuse stronger than that which
they direct against us [when] they read: ‘Whoso judges not according to what
God has sent down – they are the unbelievers … the ungodly’ (5: 44–5). On
top of this they blame us for our actions in their reading. Summon them
(fa-dʿuhum – in the singular) and make them read what we read, and make
them believe in what we believe.” He (sic) summoned and gathered them, and
forced them to choose between death and relinquishing their reading of the
Torah and Gospel, except this which had been distorted. So they said: “What
benefit is it to you if you kill us? Release us, build pillars (asāṭīn) for us, place
us on them and leave some [containers] by which food will be lifted to us, and
we shall cause you no harm.” Another group said: “Release us, and we shall
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   67
roam about, wandering, eating that which the wild beasts eat, drinking that
which the wild beasts drink. Then, if you come upon us in your land, kill us.”
Another group said: “Build for us cloisters (duyūr) in the deserts, there
we shall dig wells and grow herbs, and we shall be of no harm to you, and we
shall not pass through you[r land].”
And as there was none among the tribes (sic – min al-qabāʾil) who did
not have a close friend among these [groups], they complied.
[Later], people from among the polytheists, who became [outwardly]
worshippers (mimman taʿabbada min ahl al-shirk) said: “Let us exert our-
selves in the manner that so and so did, let us build for ourselves cloisters in
the manner that so and so did, let us go roaming about in the manner that so
and so did.” Yet, they were [inwardly] holding on to their polytheism (wa-
hum fī shirkihim), having no knowledge of the [true] belief of those in
whose footsteps they followed.
As time went by, some of them died, and when the Messenger of God,
God bless him and grant him peace, was sent, only few of them had
remained. Then, the hermits descended from their cells (inḥaṭṭa ṣāḥib
al-ṣawmaʿa min ṣawmaʿatihi), and the cenobites came out of their cloisters,
and the roaming monks [came back] from their wandering, and all of them
believed in him, and gave credence to him.
And God, praised be He, said; “O believers, fear God and believe in His
Messenger, and He will give you a twofold portion of His Mercy (57:28).
That is, a twofold recompense for their belief in Jesus, peace be upon him,
and in the Torah and Gospel, and for their belief in Muḥammad.45
This Nawādir al-uṣūl version emphasizes, clarifies and elaborates on some
points which remained rather obscure in the versions of Muqātil and al-Ṭabarī.
These may be summed up as follows:
a There were polytheistic kings, or a king, who distorted the Scriptures, the
Torah and the Gospel. These kings persecuted the believers who adhered to
the undistorted versions.
b Monasticism was originally initiated not as a recommended or prescribed
religious path, but rather as a compromise and an arrangement agreed upon
by persecutors and persecuted.
c By withdrawing to the peripheries of the heretic or polytheistic territory, the
monks were able to guard and perpetuate the undistorted scriptures and the
true belief in Jesus.
d The monasticism of the true believers was only temporary, aiming at sur-
vival until the advent of the forthcoming true prophet, after which it was
intended to dissolve.
e Meantime, monasticism spread and became a popular trend, since it
attracted people from among the heretics – or polytheists. These new monks
picked up the external features of monastic life but had no knowledge of its
true origin, sense and purpose. They were those who “observed it not as it
should be observed”.46
68   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
f When Muḥammad finally appeared, the few survivors of the temporary
monasticism relinquished their sanctuaries and joined him, “believing in
him and giving credence to his mission”.

In this version, a new topic is added to the narrative: the distortion, or falsifica-
tion of the Scriptures – taḥrīf/tabdīl al-kutub al-munazzala. This accusation is
directed here at the polytheistic ruler(s), those who persecuted the true believers.
Yet accusations of this nature were part and parcel of the bitter polemical
debates conducted by the various religious factions throughout the Middle Ages.
It is beyond the scope of this inquiry to dwell upon this intricate topic. Suffice it
to say, that a crucial object of the taḥrīf tradition within Islam is to establish the
existence in pre-Qurʾānic scriptures of prophecies about the advent of a true
Arab prophet. These prophecies, however, were distorted, falsified, or totally
abrogated, by the false adherents of Christianity and Judaism.47 According to our
tradition, the benevolent monks were those who took upon themselves, at the
risk of persecution and martyrdom, the task of guarding the undistorted Scrip-
tures. The recognition of Muḥammad as a true prophet by hermits is a well-
known theme in Islamic lore. One is reminded of the legend of Baḥīrā, the
hermit from Buṣrā, who recognized the sign of prophecy on the shoulder of the
young Muḥammad;48 or of the somewhat less renowned tradition about Zayd ibn
ʿAmr ibn Nufayl, who left Mecca in search of the true monotheism of Abraham –
al-ḥanīfiyya. At Mayfaʿa in the region of Balqā, he was looking for a certain
hermit “who had kept the secret knowledge concerning the true religion”. When
Zayd found him, he inquired about it and got this answer: “The time has come
for the true prophet, who was appointed to restore the ḥanīfiyya of Ibrāhīm to
emerge from your homeland; go back …”.49
Our exegetical tradition concerning the Qurʾānic phrase wa-rahbāniyyat an
ibtadaʿūhā thus clearly reflects an early attempt at harmonizing two contra-
dictory sets of traditions: the one condemning and rejecting monastic life as
practised in Christianity, the other ascribing to hermits the recognition of
Muḥammad as the hoped-for new prophet; these hermits were seen as the sole
guardians of a rejected and forgotten teaching.
This harmonization is achieved by distinguishing between two types of
monasticism: the one sincere and temporary, destined to guard the true Scrip-
tures, and then to dissolve and integrate within Islam;50 the other false and dis-
torted, condemned both for its extreme asceticism and for its apostasy from the
true religion of Jesus.

Sincerity versus hypocrisy

Beyond the evaluation of the false phenomena of Christian monasticism,
Muslim mystics’ emphasis on sincerity versus hypocrisy stretches to other fields
of religious activity. The critique of self-delusion (ghurūr, ghirra) and lack of
awareness becomes the hallmark of authors interested in mystical psychology
and ethics. Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 857) of Baghdād and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   69
(d. c.905) of Transoxiana are both at the forefront of this critical outlook in early
Islamic mysticism. Tirelessly, they analyse and decry the prevailing pretence and
showing-off of contemporary ascetics and mystics. For example, in a chapter on self-
delusion (ghirra) in his Riʿāya, al-Muḥāsibī argues that among the worshippers there
are those who outwardly appear to be engaged in [acts of] good will (riḍā), renunci-
ation (zuhd), trust (tawakkul) and love of God, but have no awareness of what is
truly required of them. They reduce their clothes and food consumption to minimum
in the fashion of world-withdrawal (al-zuhd fī ’l-dunyā); intent on practising ‘trust in
God’ (tawakkul), they go on pilgrimage without provision; some shun earnings;
some claim that their love of God is so great that whenever God is mentioned they
swoon. They are deluded, says al-Muḥāsibī; they talk about what God detests with-
out knowledge. Their ­religious acts are for showing-off; they are arrogant and con-
ceited, with no awareness. Piety (taqwā) they know only by name, but they fail to
realize it either outwardly or inwardly; moreover, they delude themselves of having
traversed the stage of piety to higher stages such as renunciation, trust and good will.
Al-Muḥāsibī concludes with a scathing attack of contemporary ascetics ­(literally
‘reciters’ qurrāʾ): their acts of obedience and renunciation, and the external marks of
piety and withdrawal which they present, are stimulated only by their whims and
desires (al-ghālib ʿalayhim ittibāʿ ahwāʾihim fī ṭāʿatihim wa-taqashshufihim)
and not by true awareness.51
Lack of awareness and true knowledge lie at the root of deception and self-
delusion. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, too, emphasizes this point in his mystic–
psychological teaching. Chapter 258 of his Nawādir al-uṣūl, for example, is
titled “On the Qualities of Knowledge” (fī akhlāq al-maʿrifa). Now maʿrifa in
the Ṣūfī lore has become the code term for mystical knowledge, but for
al-Tirmidhī it is interchangeable with ʿilm, usually reserved by Ṣūfī authors for
acquired knowledge. Maʿrifa he describes thus: “when it descends [upon the
heart] with its lights, the density (kathāfa) of the heart melts and it becomes soft
and gentle”.52 As for the virtue of mystical ʿilm, he writes:

Zeal (ḥirṣ) in pursuit of knowledge (ʿilm) is praiseworthy, for with knowledge

his heart ascends to the Knower of Hidden things (ʿallām al-ghuyūb); when-
ever he attains a rank, he becomes closer to his Lord, as God has said: “Those
who were given ranks in knowledge (wa ‘lladhīna ūtū ‘l-ʿilm darājāt)”.
(Q. 58:11)

To this verse al-Tirmidhī appends a prophetic ḥadīth:

May I not be blessed by the sunrise of a day in which I do not increase in

knowledge that takes me to God’s proximity.
(inna yawman lā azdādu fīhi ʿilman yuqarribunī ilā Allāhi taʿālā lā būrika lī fī
ṭulūʿi shamsi dhālika al-yawm).53

The verse and ḥadīth in praise of that kind of special ‘knowledge’ which the
Prophet aspires to, are the introduction to a didactic story about Jurayj al-Rāhib,
70   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
a hermit who had zeal (ḥirṣ) in piety but lacked knowledge and awareness. In an
aside, before telling the story, al-Tirmidhī comments on the word ḥirṣ, which
usually bears a pejorative sense of ‘greed’, ‘avidity’, especially in the pursuit of
worldly things. This word, he writes, has another aspect: eagerness in pursuit of
righteousness (birr) and piety (taqwā). This aspect of ḥirṣ, however, requires
‘knowledge’ (fa-yaḥtāju dhālika al-ḥirṣ ilā ‘l-ʿilm), lest it be the cause of grave
erring and insolence. Indeed, the root of Jurayj’s error and downfall was his lack
of such discerning knowledge and self-awareness. He erred, for he was over-
zealous in his piety, and thus preferred it to moral behaviour. The lesson which
he had to learn, and which became proverbial, was tough and shameful. The
story, told on the authority of Abū Hurayra, one of the distinguished companions
of Muḥammad, runs as follows:
Jurayj the Hermit had been practising his arduous worship in his cell (kāna
mutaʿabbidan fī ṣawmaʿatihi). His mother used to come and call out to him and
he would break his prayer and talk with her. But one day she came and called
out and he did not break his prayer saying: “O God, my mother and your prayer
(ummī wa-ṣalātuka)?!” The old woman became exasperated and called out: “O
God, if Jurayj has heard my call and has not answered me, do not make him die
before he looks at the eyes of whores! (fa-lā tumithu ḥattā yanẓura ilā aʿyun
al-mūmisāt).” As it happened, there lived a shepherdess and a shepherd in the
vicinity of his monastery (dayr) and the shepherdess became pregnant. When
she gave birth, the people of the village, who detested fornication, enquired of
her who was the child’s father and the woman said: “Jurayj the Hermit came
down from his cell and raped me.” The people then called out to him, but he did
not answer; rather, he righteously exclaimed: “O God, my people and your
prayer?!” They went up to his cell with axes and knocked it down. Then he
came down and was accused of having fathered this woman’s child. Remember-
ing his mother’s curse, Jurayj laughed. His laughter alludes, no doubt, to his
sudden recognition of his error when ‘knowledge’ – be it maʿrifa or ʿilm –
alighted upon him.54 Al-Tirmidhī concludes the story with another ḥadīth. The
Prophet said, writes al-Tirmidhī:

If the Hermit Jurayj had intelligence and knowledge, he would have known
that to answer his mother’s call was incumbent upon him in [terms of] wor-
shipping his Lord (law kāna jurayj al-rāhib faqīhan ʿāliman la-ʿalima anna
ijābat ummihi min ʿibādati rabbihi).

Clearly, the gist of this ḥadīth, according to al-Tirmidhī is this: Those who pos-
sess true knowledge understand that zealous worship without moral and ethical
sincerity is false and unworthy in the eyes of God.
In conclusion: in the shaping of early Islamic piety and asceticism, the prox-
imity and model of Christian monasticism presented great challenges. Evidently,
there was a lot to admire in the monastic worship and commitment to God and
Jesus with the enormous individual sacrifices which this way of life entailed.
There were also ample traditions of benevolent monks who had recognized and
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   71
acknowledged Muḥammad as a true prophet. Muslim seekers, ḥanīfs, would
benefit from the wisdom and lore of monks and nuns with whom they met in
desert paths and on remote hills. But ultimately the example of the monastic life
could not go hand-in-hand with what became accepted and venerated as the
Prophet’s sunna – thus it was shunned. Ascetical zeal such as that exemplified
by ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn and a few other companions (see notes 25–33 below)
had to be harnessed within the boundaries of the prophetic mode of behaviour.
Following the story of Jurayj the Hermit, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī reproduces a
lengthy argument between ʿUthmān and the Prophet, in which, point by point,
ʿUthmān expresses his wish to follow monastic-type asceticism and the Prophet
prohibits it by bringing his way of life as the superior example. ʿUthmān wishes
to emasculate himself, to withdraw to the tops of the hills, to wander on mountain
tops, to give up his property, to divorce his wife or at least to abstain from inter-
course with her, to abstain from eating meat, to refrain from perfume – all these
the Prophet rejects saying: “O ʿUthmān, do not shun my sunna, for he who
shuns my sunna and dies before he repents, on the day of resurrection the angels
will fall back on him denying him access to my pool.”
Naturally, in this dialogue the last words belong to the Prophet. These words
may clinch my attempt to highlight the anti-zuhdī lines pronounced early on in
Islam and their clear reiteration in early mystical writings.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 13 (1990), 195–208.
  2 On the practice of ‘tonsure’, see, William Fanning, “Tonsure”, The Catholic Encyclo-
pedia, Vol. 14 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912); for this practice in
ordination ceremonies of the Eastern Church in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, see
Edip Aydın, Comparing the Syriac Order of Monastic Profession with the Order of
Baptism, both in External Structure and in Theological Themes: PhD dissertation
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2011), 96ff.
  3 See also Chapter 1.
  4 See Patricia Crone, “Ninth-Century Muslim Anarchists”, Past and Present 167
(2000): 3–28; also Chapter 1 in this monograph, [nn 9–10].
  5 On the adoption of this term by the Baghdādī circle of al-Junayd’s disciples, see
Chapters 4 and 5 in this monograph; also Alexander D. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A
Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 5ff.; Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The Form-
ative Period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: 2007), 7.
  6 See, for example, Al-Bukhārī, Ṣāḥīḥ, Bāb al-qazaʿ (Beirut: Dār Ṭawq al-Najā, 1422 h),
Vol. 7, 163; Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Bāb karāhat al-qazaʿ (Beirut, n.d.), Vol. 3, 1675.
 7 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877), al-aṣl
al-khāmis, 9; for the translation, see Edward William Lane, Arabic–English Lexicon
(London: Williams & Norgate, 1863), 2345b: “Thou wilt find a people who have
made their heads like the nests (‫ )أفاحيص‬of [the birds called] ‫( ”قطا‬with thanks to Guy
­Ron-Gilboa); see also Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq (Beirut: Dār al-fikr, 1995),
2: 76; al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2003), 9: 145.
  8 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Chapter 5.
  9 Ibid.
10 A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (Oxford: Allen & Unwin, 1964), 567–8.
72   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
11 Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, Bāb al-waṣiyya li ‘l-murīd (Saida:
­al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 2001), 435 (trans. SS); see also Samuela Pagani,
“L’invention des ādāb: ‘innovasions’ soufies et monachism dans l’exégèse du verset
57:27 du Coran”, in Ethics and Spirituality in Islam: Sufi adab, eds Francesco Chi-
abotti et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 251 and 255.
12 This is Benjamin Clark’s English translation of Louis Massignon, Essai – see Louis
Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 100–1; for Massignon’s
French translation of the verse, see Essai, 148; for a lengthy discussion of the significance
of the grammatical position of rahbāniyya, see Pagani, “L’Invention des ādāb”,
228–9, 238 et passim.
13 For the meaning of the verb ibtadaʿa, which occurs here as a Qurʾānic hapax legomenon,
see Pagani, “L’Invention des ādāb”, 238.
14 Massignon, Essai, 145–53; the following references are to the English translation.
15 See Essay, 100.
16 Ibid., 99.
17 Edmund Beck, “Das christliche Mönchtum im Koran”, Studia Orientalia (Helsinki)
13 (1946): 3–29 – especially 17ff.
18 See, ibid., for example, 20, nn 2, 3.
19 See Beck, “Das christliche Mönchtum im Koran”, 18.
20 On Muqātil, see F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden: Brill,
1967), Vol. 1, 36ff.; see also Chapters 2 and 7 in this monograph.
21 Paul Nwiya, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai sur le lexique tech-
nique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970), 52–6.
22 See Nwiya, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 53; see also Muqātil b.
Sulaymān, Tafsīr Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd (Beirut: Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 2003), Vol. 3, 327.
23 This “gap” seems to be free of later theological speculations concerning khalq
al-afʿāl. One could also point to the pejorative sense attached to the radical b-d-ʿ by
ahl al sunna wal-ḥadīth, of which the Qurʾānic usage may have been innocent. Beck,
however, argues that theological arguments in this respect are the reason behind the
severance by some commentators of rahbāniyyatan from jaʿalnā – see Beck, “Das
christliche Mönchtum”, 19–21; see also Massignon, Essai, 150–1. On the theological
issue of kasb, see Pagani, “L’Invention des ādāb”, 238–40.
24 See Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil, Vol. 1, 316–18.
25 See, for example, Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr (Leiden: Brill, 1904), Vol. 3,
287ff.; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmīʿ al-bayān (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1958), Vol. 10, 513ff.; Ibn
Ḥanbal, Musnad (Cairo: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif, 1319 h), Vol. 1, 175 and 183. It is,
however, absent from the Sīra of Ibn Hishām.
26 See, for example, Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, Vol. 6, 226.
27 See A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane (Leiden: Brill,
1933–1969), Vol. 2, 312.
28 See Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, Vol. 3, 287; see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Nawādir al ūṣul, al-aṣl al-258, 347.
29 See al-Ṭabarī, Jāmīʿ al-bayān, Vol. 10, 515.
30 See ibid., 516.
31 Ibn Saʿd, an early third/ninth-century chronicler, authored one of the earliest biog-
raphies of Muḥammad and his companions; interestingly, Massignon himself refers
to Ibn Saʿd as a source for the tradition about ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn – see Massignon,
Essai, 146 n. 5 = Essay, 99, n. 37.
32 On an interesting exchange between ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn, who seems keen to adopt
monastic practices, and the Prophet who tries to persuade him to abandon such
wishes, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al ūṣul, al-aṣl al-258, 346–7.
 Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā   73
33 On Kumayt ibn Zayd, see Wilferd Madelung, “The ‘Hāshimiyyāt’ of al-Kumayt and
Hāshimī Shiʿism”, Studia Islamica 70 (1989): 5–26.
34 See Kumayt b. Zayd, Die Hāšimijjāt des Kumait, ed. J. Horovitz (Leiden: Brill,
1904), 123.
35 Note, however, the commentary of Abū Rayāsh Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qaysī (d. 349)
to verse 39:
‫ ﻛﻴﻒ ﺷﺒﻪ ﺍﻟﻜﻤﻴﺖ ﺑﺪﻋﺔ ﺍﻟﺮﻫﺒﺎﻥ ﺑﺒﺪﻋﺔ ﺑﻨﻲ ﺃﻣﻴﺔ ﻭﺑﺪﻋﺔ ﺍﻟﺮﻫﺒﺎﻥ ﻣﺤﻤﻮﺩﺓ ﻭﺑﺪﻋﺔ ﺑﻨﻲ ﺃﻣﻴﺔ ﻣﺬﻣﻮﻣﺔ؟ ﻗﻴﻞ‬:‫ﺇﻥ ﻗﺎﻝ ﻟﻪ ﻗﺎﺋﻞ‬
.‫ ﺃﺭﺍﺩ ﺍﻟﺒﺪﻋﺔ ﻓﻘﻂ ﻷﻧﻬﻢ ﻏﻴﺮﻭﺍ ﻣﺎ ﺃﻣﺮ ﷲ ﺑﻪ ﻭﺑﺪﻟﻮﻩ ﻭﺣﻮﻟﻮﺍ ﺃﻣﺮﻩ ﻭﻧﻬﻴﻪ‬:‫ – ﻟﻪ‬see Abū Rayāsh, Sharḥ
Hāshimiyyāt al-Kumayt (Beirut: ʿĀlam al-kutub, 1986), 162; the commentator,
a Zaydī, does not object to the grammatical association of ‘monasticism’ and
­‘invention’ – this reading seems to be taken for granted; nevertheless, he sees this
‘invention’ as laudable, unlike the ‘invention’ of the Umayyad dynasty, which to
him is reprehensible.
36 See ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-jihād, ed. Nazīh Ḥammād (Beirut: Dār
al-Maṭbuʿāt al-Ḥadītha, 1391), 35–6; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al ūṣul,
al-aṣl al-258, 346.
37 See Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil, Vol. 3, 327.
38 On al-dīn al-ḥanīf, see W.M. Watt, “Ḥanīf”, Encyclopaedia of Islam2, Online; on
‘abrogation’, see note 47 below.
39 See al-Ṭabarī, Jāmīʿ al-bayān, Vol. 23, 205–6.
40 On a later version of this story and its polemical implications, see Shlomo Pines,
“Gospel Quotations and Cognate Topics in Abd al-Jabbār’s Tathbīt in relation to early
Christian and Judaeo-Christian readings and traditions”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 9 (1987): 265–7; it is also relevant to ponder the association of this narrative
with Sūrat al-kahf (18): 9–22, which tells about the youths who were true believers and
had to flee from persecution of the Pagan kings of their time. They hid in a cave and, by
divine grace, slept there for many years till it was safe to wake up and come out – see
Robert Tottoli, “Men of the Cave”, The Encyclopaedia of the Quran, Online.
41 See, for example, Q. 5:72–73 and note Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil, and his commentary
to verse 72: nazalat fī naṣārā Najrān al-māryaʿqūbīyīn as well as to verse 73: yaʿnī
al-malkāniyyina qālū Allāh wal-maṣīḥ wa-Maryam [thalātha]– 1:313–14; cf. ʿAbd
al-Jabbār, Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān (Beirut: al-Dār
al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa, 1966/1386), Vol. 1, 108ff. (note especially 109: wa-inna
al-masīḥ ʿaduww li-hāʾulāʾi al-naṣārā wa barīʾun minhum); cf. also, Abū Rifāʿa ibn
Wathīma, Kitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qīṣaṣ al-anbīyāʾ, ed. R.G. Khoury (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1978), 329.
42 Cf. the Qurʾānic use of the participle muṣaddiq in, for example, Q. 2:101, 3:39, 3:50,
3:81, 5:46, 35:31; note especially 61:6 – wa-idh qāla ʿĪsa ibn Maryam: yā Banī
Isrāʾīl, innī rasūlu Allāh ʿalaylkum muṣaddiqan limā bayna yadayya min al-taurāh wa-
mubashshiran bi-rasūl yaʾtī min baʿdī ismuhu Aḥmad.
43 See Muqātil, Tafsīr Muqātil, Vol. 1, 316; cf. al-Ṭabarī, Jāmīʿ al-bayān, Vol. 10, 499–500,
where a tradition, recorded on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, refers to the mission
of Jaʿfar, together with seventy men, to the Abyssinian Negus. When they intended to
return, forty Abyssinian believers asked permission to join Jaʿfar and his companions
in order to support and aid the as yet inexperienced Muslim community.
44 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 10–11; an almost identical version is
recorded in al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr, Jāmīʿ al-bayān, Vol. 23, 203.
45 For a late antique background for stories about Christian persecution with links to
monasticism, see, for example, Ronit Nikolsky, “The History of the Rechabites and
the Jeremiah Literature”, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13(2) (2002):
185–207; on the Qurʾānic reference to “Men of the Cave”, see n. 40 above.
46 This seems to be the most crucial point of al-Tirmidhī’s exegesis and its raison
d’être: the whole passage is directed against the false ascetics of his time – fa-ʿalā
74   Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf )
hādhā al-mithāl ʿāmalat mutazahhidat zamāninā – see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Nawādir al-uṣūl (1877), al-aṣl 5, 10, l. 20; interestingly, this version does not occur
in either Muqātil or al-Ṭabarī.
47 On the taḥrīf accusations and counter-accusations by Jews, Christians, Jewish-Christians,
Gnostics, Manichaeans and Muslims see, for example, Tor Andrae, Les Origines de
I’lslam et le Christianisme, trans. J. Roche (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1955),
203–4; Gordon Darnell Newby, “Forgery”, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, online, and
the bibliographical list there; H. Lazarus-Yaffeh, Intertwined Worlds (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1992). Ch. 2, 19–49; al-Shahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal wal-
niḥal (Leipzig: Harassowitz,1923), 162; ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa,
Vol. 1, 156ff.; also Introduction, [n. 36].
48 See, for example, Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wal-mulūk, vol. 2, 277; al-Masʿūdī,
Kitāb Murūj al-dhahab, eds C. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille (Paris:
L’Imprimerie imperial, 1861–1877), I 146–7; al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1985), Vol. 2, 24, 27–9; Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī,
Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa (Beirut: Dār al-Naqāʾish, 1986), 54; A. Abel, “Baḥīrā”, Encyclo-
paedia of Islam2, Vol. 1, 922. On Baḥīrā, see also Chapter 2 in this monograph, [n.
20].
49 See Ibn Hishām, Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, Vol. 1 229; cf. also the tradition concerning
Salmān al-Fārisī and his search for the true religion, Ibn Hishām, Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya,
Vol. 1, 214; also Chapter 2 in this monograph; see also Patricia Crone, “Islam,
­Judeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 2 (1980): 90; note also the reading ṣiddīqīna for qissīsīna of 5:82 attributed to
Salmān – see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (1877), al-aṣl 5, 9.
50 Cf. al-Jāḥiẓ, Risāla fī ‘l-radd ʿalā al-naṣārā, in Thalāth rasāʾil, ed. Joshua Finkel
(Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, 1926), 14: “wa-fī nafs al-āya [5:82] aʿẓam al-dalīl
ʿalā anna Allāh taʿālā lam yaʿni hāʾulāʾi al-naṣārā wa-lā ashbahahum al-malkānīya
wal-yaʿqūbīya wa-innamā ʿanā ḍarb Baḥīrā wa-ḍarb al-ruhbān alladhīna kāna yakh-
dimuhum Salmān.”
51 See al-Muḥāsibī, “Chapter on Self-Delusion in Worship and Practice” (Bāb al-ghirra
bi‘l-ʿibāda wal-ʿamal): al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh (Beirut: Dār al-
kutub al-ʿilmiyya, n.d.), 461; also Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A
Study of the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, a.d 781–a.d 857
(London: Sheldon Press, 1935), Ch. 8, 135ff.; Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in
Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muḥāsibī (New York: Routledge, 2012), 69ff.
52 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 258, 423.
53 Ibid., 427.
54 Ibid., 428–9.
Part II
Schools and teachers
4 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the
Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr1

Blame (malāma)
One of the most illuminating chapters in the history of the early mystical movements
in Islam concerns the Malāmatiyya, the ‘Path of Blame’, a movement that thrived in
Nīshāpūr during the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries and had also later upshots.
Telling the story of this movement – its teachings and main protagonists, the ‘people
of blame’ (ahl al-malāma) – is not only vital for describing the early history of
Islamic mysticism; it is also, from the perspective of the History of Religion, an out-
standing example of a system which advocates a contrary method of self-blame. To
incur blame on oneself is, for all intents and purposes, contrary to human nature,
which tends to shy away from blame and to deflect accusations from itself onto
others. Contra naturam is also the attempt to conceal good qualities and expose bad
ones. Yet, in their mystical quest, the ‘people of blame’ tried to achieve just that: to
make their ‘self’, their ‘I’, the object of blame and, consequently, to conceal their
praiseworthy qualities and advertise their blameworthy ones. Al-Sulamī, the
tenth–eleventh-century author who is our main source (on him and his affiliation, see
Sources section below), describes the ‘people of blame’ as mystics of the highest
rank. In his Epistle on the Malāmatiyya (Risālat al-malāmatiyya), he places them at
the highest of what are for him the three ‘layers’ (ṭabaqāt) of the religious order in
Islam. According to him, in the first rank stand the ʿulamāʾ, the religious scholars
(ʿulamāʾ al-sharʿ wa-aʾimmat al-dīn); then come the Ṣūfīs, whom God has singled
out by bestowing on them special knowledge (maʿrifa) and extraordinary deeds
(karāmāt); lastly, come the ‘people of blame’, who in their innermost (sirr al-asrār)
have reached a state of union with God (jamʿ, jamʿ al-jamʿ, ittiṣāl), but no external
signs of this is outwardly visible. He writes – what seems diametrically opposed to
our customary view of the nature of Islamic mysticism, “One of the most elevated
states is to avoid giving preference to the inner over the outer (min asnā ‘l-aḥwāl
allā yuʾaththara ‘l-bāṭin ʿalā-l-ẓāhir).”2
What was the rationale of such outstanding emphasis on self-blame and con-
cealment? Who were the ‘people of blame’ whose names have come down to
us? What were the practices established by them? How did they fare vis-à-vis
other contemporaneous religious and mystical groups? Were they mystics or
perhaps ascetics as some scholars would have it? Ever since I encountered the
78   Schools and teachers
malmātīs in my studies of early Islamic mysticism, my interest in them grew,
and the information accumulated. In this chapter, I wish to address these points
with the help of available sources and studies and describe this remarkable path
against the backdrop of the mystical scene of their time and place.
A dramatic conflict is played out in the malāmatī path between the nafs, the
‘lower-self’, and the qalb (heart) or sirr (the heart’s innermost core) – a conflict,
reflecting the duality which, in modern parlance, is sometimes referred to as
‘personality’ or ‘ego’ versus ‘Being’ or ‘Self’. This conflict, from early on, has
been fundamental to most mystical schools in Islam. As elaborated in another
chapter of this book,3 the nafs, the ‘lower-self’, is the energetic centre from
which the ‘I’ – the personality, the ego-consciousness – arises and by which it is
nurtured. The qalb, in contrast, and its innermost aspect the ‘secret’ (sirr), is
perceived as that boundless yet hidden core within the human being where
God’s lights reside. While the ‘personality’ is limited by its finite self-identifica-
tion, the ‘heart’ yearns to the infinite ‘beyond’, to the ‘other-than-I’, and aspires
to awaken fully within the realm of the divine lights. In the history of Islamic
mysticism, the ego–heart conflict and the stratagems to overcome the empower-
ment of the ego (nafs) took various shapes and forms, some outstripping con-
ventional religious and social norms. Thus, for example, the Qalandariyya, a
late medieval ṭarīqa with unclear origins, perpetuated the principle of incurring
blame to extreme antinomian limits.4 The Naqshbandiyya, on the other hand,
refined the principle of concealing any spiritual attainments and thus took on
normative appearances.5 In ninth–tenth-century Nīshāpūr, the malāmatī teachers
devised a system in which sincere self-scrutiny and self-criticism were inter-
woven into a social code based on chivalry and altruism (īthār, as exemplified
by the futuwwa fraternities),6 and in which the call for abandoning outward
marks of distinction and inward claim to spiritual attainments meant, in practice,
a strict adherence to the conventional norms of the Islamic sharīʿa. As we shall
see, such principles brought up a fundamental problem: how far can one proceed
on a path of uncompromising introverted purification, which entails elimination
of any external traces of vanity (ʿujb), presumptuous pretension (iddiʿāʾ) and
delusion (ghurūr), to the point of incurring constant blame upon one’s self, with-
out undermining the ethical and practical precepts of extroverted religion.7
Another point to bear in mind is this: the Malāmatiyya, among other aspects,
represents an introverted reaction to extroverted forms of asceticism (zuhd).8

Nīshāpūr
The activity of the Malāmatiyya took place during the third/ninth–fourth/tenth
centuries in Khurāsān, in the town of Nīshāpūr, against the background of
dynamic religious activity, especially of circles with distinct ascetic and mys-
tical characteristics. During this period, together with Merv, Herat and Balkh,
Nīshāpūr was one of the four main cities of Khurāsān.9 It stood at an important
crossroads from which several main routes spread out: the westward route to
Rayy and hence to Baghdād; south-west to Shiraz and the Persian Gulf; south-east
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   79
and then north-east to Herat, Balkh, Tirmidh, Bukhara and India; and north-east
to Ṭūs, Mashhad, Merv, Samarqand, Central Asia and China. During the reign
of the Ṭāhirid Dynasty (820–873), Nīshāpūr was the governmental centre and
the capital of Khurāsān.10 Following the fall of Baghdād to the Buwayhids in
945,11 Nīshāpūr became the de facto centre of Sunni Islam till at least the mid-
fifth/eleventh century. In its heyday, it consisted of a large number of quarters
(maḥallāt), originally villages which became absorbed into the expanding
town.12 Its flourishing agriculture was based on a fine and sophisticated irriga-
tion system, with mostly subterranean canals, which efficiently used the water of
the melting snow from the mountains surrounding the city as well as the water
of the river which flows through its north-eastern part. It also had a flourishing
weaving and pottery industry. The north-western part of the city, the Mānishāk
suburb, was inhabited mainly by the poor, especially weavers and water-carriers.
This was most probably the only area of the city which was not irrigated by
canals.13 The north-eastern sections, sometimes referred to as villages (qurā) –
Mulāqabādh, Khordabādh and Naṣrabādh – and the southern suburb of Ḥīra, were
inhabited mainly by merchants, well-to-do craftsmen and artisans, as well as by
scholars and other members of what might be regarded as a well-established middle
class.14 Some of the well-off citizens of Nīshāpūr owned irrigated estates with large
orchards. Most of the distinguished families of Nīshāpūr – those who Richard Bul-
liet calls “the Patricians of Nīshāpūr”15 – lived in the centre of town. These socio-
historical observations have a bearing on the identification and characterization of
malāmatīs which follow.16 Since the third/ninth century, the well-being of Nīshāpūr
and its inhabitants was impaired by violent religious struggles of a sectarian and
fanatical nature. These struggles, which occurred also in other parts of Khurāsān,
were known as ʿaṣabiyyāt (fights of rival groups based on strong self-identities).17 It
seems, however, that Nīshāpūr was the worst affected by them, and that it was the
ʿaṣabiyyāt that brought about the eventual decline of the city in the sixth/twelfth
century. These “wild sectarian struggles” – al-ʿaṣabiyyāt, al-waḥsha – were carried
out, according to the tenth-century geographer al-Maqdisī, against the background
of intense hostility between the different schools of religious law (the madhāhib),
and first and foremost between Ḥanafites and Shāfiʿites,18 whereas the Mālikites,
Ẓāhirites and Ḥanbalites constituted only a small minority in Nīshāpūr. There were
also struggles between Shīʿī groups and the Karrāmiyya (on which see below), as
well as between groups of ‘vigilantes’ (mutaṭawwiʿa)19 and some other extremists,
such as remnants of the Khawārij. As a general rule, a correlation existed between
the madhhab and the theological segmentation: most Ḥanafites adhered to the
Muʿtazila while most Shāfiʿites adhered to ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Ḥadīth, namely, to
traditional Islam, and subsequently to the Ashʿarites.20 It is against this factional and
sectarian backdrop that the activities of the early malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr take place.

Sources
1 The only source which deals specifically with the Malāmatīyya is Abū ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s Risālat al-malāmatiyya.21 Al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021),
80   Schools and teachers
himself a native of Nīshāpūr and a member of one of the eminent families
there,22 was also – and this is significant – the disciple of Abū ʿAmr Ismāʿīl
ibn Nujayd. The latter was al-Sulamī’s maternal grandfather and one of the
most distinguished disciples of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, one of the central
Shaykhs of the malāmatī circle at the end of the third/ninth century.23
Al-Sulamī’s Risāla (Epistle) is in fact the only source upon which various
scholars have based their historical and typological reconstruction of the
Malāmatīyya. Some of the notable studies are the following: Richard Hart-
mann’s “Al-Sulamī’s Risālat al-Malāmatiyya”24 as well as his “Futuwwa
und Malāma”;25 Abū ‘l-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAfīfī’s Al-Malāmatiyya wa ‘l-ṣūfiyya wa
ahl al-futuwwa;26 Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī’s al-Ṣila bayna ‘l-taṣawwuf wa
‘l-tashayyuʿ27; J. Spencer Trimingham’s The Sufi Orders in Islam.28
Despite the fertile discourse concerning the relationship between malāma
and taṣawwuf, malāma and futuwwa, malāma and zuhd, the scant historical
information is drawn from one another, and, ultimately, from al-Sulamī
himself. What seems relevant to highlight is that this document is a testa-
ment of al-Sulamī’s own affiliation to the ‘people of blame’: being a dis-
ciple and grandson of one of the distinguished members of the Nīshāpūrī
school, he must have had a triple purpose in mind in writing it: first, to place
the Malāmatiyya in the arena of the mystical tradition of Islam, outside its
local Nīshāpūrī limits; second, to perpetuate the malāmatī teachers, whose
teachings he elevated above that of the Ṣūfīs; finally, to exonerate the
malāmatīs of accusation of nonconformity and antinomianism which might
have been levelled against them (see Sources, 4). In the attempt to trace the
history of the Malāmatiyya, later sources, such as al-Hujwīrī’s Kashf
al-maḥjūb, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī’s ʿAwārif al-maʿārif or Ibn
ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, are erroneously adduced – erroneously,
since these authors do not engage with historicity, but rather, and solely,
with the typological and mystical aspects of the ‘Path of Blame’.29
2 In 1965, Richard Frye published three facsimiles of manuscripts of a bio-
graphical work, Taʾrīkh Naysābūr by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd
Allāh al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī al-Bayyiʿ (d. 404/1014), written probably at the
end of the tenth century.30 The original work by al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī was
lost, but large portions of it were absorbed by several authors: by Samʿānī
(d. 562/1166) in Kitāb al-Ansāb, by ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 529/1134)
in Kitāb al-Farq bayna ‘l-firaq, and by al-Subkī (d. 727/1327) in Ṭabaqāt
al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā. The first manuscript in Frye’s collection is an abridged
version of the Taʾrīkh Naysābūr in Persian, titled Aḥwāl-i Nīshāpūr. This
abridged version covers the period which concerns us, the third/ninth and
fourth/tenth centuries, and ends with the contemporaries of al-Ḥākim
al-Naysābūrī.31 The Aḥwāl-i Nīshāpūr contains, as expected, biographical lists
of the eminent scholars (ʿulamāʾ) and Shaykhs of Nīshāpūr in the third/ninth
and fourth/tenth centuries. It mentions approximately fifty of the renowned
mystics of the town. They are referred to neither as Ṣūfīs nor as malāmatīs but
rather as zuhhād (ascetics), ʿubbād (worshippers), wuʿʿāẓ or mudhakkirūn
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   81
(preachers). The epithet Ṣūfī comes up for the first time in this source as the
attribute of Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932). The latter indeed lived in
Nīshāpūr for a number of years but was not a native of it. He arrived there
from Baghdād, where in his youth he had belonged to the circle of Junayd.32
From the fourth/tenth century on, however, the epithet Ṣūfī appears with
increasing frequency in front of the names of the local Shaykhs as well. The
attribute malāmatī does not appear even once.33 These manuscripts have been
the basis for R.W. Bulliet’s enlightening socio-historical study on the distin-
guished families of Nīshāpūr during the period between the third/ninth–sixth/
twelfth centuries. Its title, The Patricians of Nishapur, a Study in Medieval
Islamic Social History, speaks for itself.34
3 An important source for the history of Khurāsān in the fourth/tenth century are
the first-hand descriptions of the famous traveller and geographer from
­Jerusalem, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Maqdisī (or
al-Muqaddasī, d. 380/990) in his book Aḥsan al-taqāsīm.35 This source is
particularly important for the history and characterization of the
Karrāmiyya, whose eponym is Muḥammad ibn Karrām (d. 255/869). Ibn
Karrām was an ascetic and preacher in Khurāsān who exerted an enormous
influence, especially among the poor of Nīshāpūr (see “Malāmatiyya and
Karrāmiyya” section below). In his book, similarly to al-Ḥākim
al-Naysābūrī, al-Maqdisī does not mention either of the appellations ṣūfīs or
malāmatīs at all. To the pietists, ascetics and mystics of Khurāsān he refers
as ʿubbād, zuhhād, wuʿʿāẓ and karrāmiyya.
4 The earliest source known to me in which the Malāmatiyya are mentioned
is Kitāb al-Badʾ wa ‘l-taʾrīkh, the chronicles of the historian Abū Naṣr
al-Muṭahhar ibn Tāhir al-Muqaddasī (or al-Maqdisī), written circa 355/966.
In the fifth volume of his book, Abū Naṣr al-Muqaddasī writes:

The Ṣūfī groups: among them are the Ḥasaniyya [after Ḥasan al-Baṣrī?
or perhaps one should read al-Ḥusayniyya after al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr
al-Ḥallāj?], al-Malāmatiyya, al Sūqiyya and al-Maʿdhūriyya. These are
characterized by the lack of any consistent system or clear principles of
faith. They make judgements according to their speculations and imagi-
nation, and they constantly change their opinions. Some of them
believe in incarnation (ḥulūl), as I have heard one of them claim that
his habitation is in the cheeks of the beardless youth (murd).36 Some of
them uphold promiscuity (ibāḥa) and neglect the religious law, and
they do not heed those who blame them …37

The significance of this mid-tenth-century source is obvious as it relates to

groups which had chosen to follow the peculiar ‘Path of Blame’ (malāma),
thus alluding to the characteristics of that mystical trend practised by the
masters of Nīshāpūr to whom al-Sulamī, barely a generation later, dedicated
his Malāmatiyya Epistle. The historian al-Muṭahhar al-Muqaddasī hence
suggests that in the fourth/tenth century a group of “[people] who do not
82   Schools and teachers
heed those who blame them”, known as the Malāmatiyya, could have been
referred to as Ṣūfīs. His description is unfavourable and critical. It suggests
that the Malāmatiyya, and the other groups mentioned in association with
them, had a strong antinomian, nonconformist streak. This information,
which to the best of my knowledge is unique in the non-Ṣūfī literature of
the time, sheds light on the apologetics underlying al-Sulamī’s works: the
Malāmatiyya Epistle as well as his hagiographical Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya. By
‘apologetics’ I refer to al-Sulamī’s wish to vindicate his hometown’s spir-
itual teachers, in fact, his own teachers, of antinomian and nonconformist
accusations levelled against them.38
5 Additional material at our disposal are letters written by al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī (d. c.295/908) to two contemporary mystics associated with the
early Malāmatiyya: one letter to Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī and two to
Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī (see the discussion on this correspond-
ence, in “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Nīshāpūrī masters” section below;
see also Chapter 6 in this monograph). Each of the three letters of
al-Tirmidhī is written in response to the correspondent’s arguments or ques-
tions concerning ‘psychological’ difficulties on the mystical path. In all of
them al-Tirmidhī criticizes the system which, in its excessive concern with
observing the negative, blameworthy aspects of the ‘lower-self’ (nafs),
leads its adherents away from the constant remembrance of God. These
letters shed light on the main dilemma arising from the malāmatī wish to
observe and control the ‘lower-self’: the obsession with the introverted
work obstructs the constant remembrance of God, which to some, like for
al-Tirmidhī, is the central concern of the inward life.

Mystics, not necessarily Ṣūfīs

One of the insights stemming from the study of sources concerning early
Islamic mysticism is this: from the third/ninth to fourth/tenth centuries not all
Muslim mystics were known as Ṣūfīs. Addressing Muslim mystics with the
epithet ‘ṣūfī’ and identifying Islamic mysticism with taṣawwuf seems to be the
direct result of the compilatory literature of the late fourth/tenth century and
later.39 With al-Kalābādhī’s Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf,
al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya,
al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb al-asrār and, later on, al-Qushayrī’s al-Risāla fī ʿilm
al-taṣawwuf and al-Hujwīrī’s Kashf al-maḥjūb, there is a clear attempt to pre-
sent an amalgamated picture of the different schools and centres, without losing
sight – albeit subtly and tacitly – of the compilers’ own affiliation and alle-
giance. One may thus argue that al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, in which he
includes mystics of different schools under one heading, complements his more
locally oriented the Malāmatiyya Epistle: both works are the response of a
Khurāsānī-Nīshāpūrī compiler to the emphatically Baghdādī slant of the earlier
compilations of al-Kalābādhī and al-Sarrāj.40 The last two authors, in spite of
their Khurāsānī origin, represent in their compilations mainly the Baghdādī
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   83
school of the third/ninth century. One of al-Sarrāj’s main authorities and
­informants is Jaʿfar al-Khuldī (d. 348/959), an important transmitter of sayings
and traditions emanating from the schools of al-Junayd, the main Baghdādī
teacher during most of the ninth century.41 In the same vein it is worth noting that
in al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, the Khurāsānī masters are scarcely mentioned;
some of them are totally glossed over (e.g. Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār and al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī). This reticence is not accidental. It reflects a conscious divergence
between Baghdād and Khurāsān, a divergence which, notwithstanding the later
fusion, left its traces in the Ṣūfī tradition. It is highlighted, for example, by a
comment made by the same Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, recorded by al-Sulamī in his
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ­concerning al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. Al-Sulamī writes:

I heard Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Khuldī say: “I own a hundred and thirty odd
works by Ṣūfīs.” I asked him: “Do you own any of the works of al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī?” He said: “No, I do not count him among the Ṣūfīs.”42

At first sight it may appear that this is a disparaging comment by al-Khuldī. It may
be understood, however, as reflecting a period, probably the pre-compilatory, in
which the terms ṣūfī, ṣūfiyya and taṣawwuf designated exclusively the Baghdādī
circle. Indeed, in the vast corpus of al-Tirmidhī, the term ṣūfī occurs only in refer-
ence to an ascetic, and not in a favourable tone.43 This assumption is corroborated
also by the fact, mentioned above, that in al-Ḥākim al-Naysabūrī’s lists the first to
be invested with the title al-ṣūfī is Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī, who had left the Baghdādī
school before moving to Khurāsān. The statistics provided by Bulliet in his study
of Aḥwāl-i Nishāpūr are also relevant: they show that the circulation of the attrib-
ute ṣūfī attached to names of Nīshāpūrī Shaykhs became more frequent only from
the fourth/tenth century onwards.44 Al-Sulamī himself seems to acknowledge this
fact in his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya when, in writing about Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, the
central Nīshāpūrī Shaykh at the end of the third/ninth century, he remarks: “… the
Ṣūfī system in Nīshāpūr spread from him …”45 Does this mean that before Abū
ʿUthmān there were no mystics in Nīshāpūr? Or may it rather suggest that Abū
ʿUthmān, a moderate malāmatī as well as the spiritual teacher of al-Sulamī’s
grandfather, could have adequately represented an early attempt at merging the
Baghdādī and the Khurāsānī schools under the inclusive title ṣūfī?
In sum, it is my contention that al-Sulamī, who is virtually our only direct
source for the early Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr, is also responsible – especially via
his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya in which he includes both Baghdādī and Khurāsānī teach-
ers – for creating and bequeathing the perception that taṣawwuf had been a
homogeneous movement since early in the history of Islamic mysticism. One
cannot overestimate the suggestive impact that al-Sulamī’s works have had on
modern as well as medieval students. The Ṭabaqāt, in fact, is the main source
that has shaped our knowledge and conception of early Ṣūfī history. Al-Sulamī’s
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, as well as al-Qushayrī’s Risāla and the compilatory liter-
ature at large, do reflect the all-inclusive mystical tradition which became estab-
lished within Islam through these authors efforts. Indeed, the various Shaykhs
84   Schools and teachers
mentioned and referred to in these compilations are all mystics: seekers for
whom a direct numinous experience and the psychological transformation which
this experience entails is the end and meaning of their lives and teachings. These
seekers and teachers were known in the first few centuries of Islamic history by
various names: ahl al-maʿrifa, ahl al-ḥaqīqa, al-ʿārifūn, al-sālikūn, al-zuhhād,
al-fuqarāʾ etc. At times, they were named after their particular teachers:
al-Ḥakīmiyya, al-Hallājiyya, al-Qaṣṣāriyya …46
It seems most probable that the mainstream of Islamic mysticism in the
third/ninth century, that is, the Baghdādī school, adopted the title al-ṣūfiyya.47
As has been shown in another chapter, this term had initially denoted ascetics
and had related to certain ascetical groups.48 It was not until the second half of
the fourth/tenth century – mainly as a result of the compilatory activity – that the
terms Ṣūfiyya and taṣawwuf denoted Muslim mystics and Islamic mysticism at
large, merging within it the various paths and schools within its scope.

Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār al-Malāmatī, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Ḥaddād

and Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī: two streams within
the Nīshāpūrī school
In the Ṣūfī compilations from the fourth/tenth century onwards, including
al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār (d. 271/884) is the only
Nīshāpūrī Shaykh who is consistently referred to as al-malāmatī. According to
al-Sulamī, he was the founder of the malāmatī school in Nīshāpūr.49 Scrutinizing
the hagiographical material concerning the Nīshāpūrī teachers of the third/ninth
century vis-à-vis al-Sulamī’s Malāmatiyya Epistle, we learn that there were two
separate circles within the Nīshāpūrī ‘Path of Blame’: the circle of Ḥamdūn,
extreme and non-compromising in its practice of ‘incurring blame on oneself’
(malāmat al-nafs)50 and the more moderate circle of Abū Ḥafṣ and Abū
ʿUthmān. It was the latter circle to which al-Sulamī’s grandfather adhered, being
one of the closest disciples of Abū ʿUthmān.51 Many anecdotes reveal Ḥamdūn’s
insistence on the principle of hiding away all external signs of spirituality. In the
following one Ḥamdūn is described by a compatriot, Nūḥ al-ʿAyyār, who
belonged to one of the ‘extroverted’ spiritual circles in Nīshāpūr:52

Whereas I [Nūḥ] … wear a patched garment (muraqqaʿa) … so that I may

become a ṣūfī and abstain from sin, for the shame that I feel before God,
you (i.e. Ḥamdūn) put off the patched frock lest you be deluded by men and
men be deluded by you …53

In the following passage from the Malāmatiyya Epistle, Ḥamdūn denounces

overt spiritual practices and criticizes the audible dhikr (the practice of remem-
bering God vocally):54

When some of the masters were in a gathering with Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, a

certain master was mentioned, and it was said that he practiced dhikr profusely.
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   85
Ḥamdūn remarked, “Yet he is constantly heedless.” Someone who was present
inquired, “Should he not be grateful that God bestows upon him the ability to
commit himself to the audible dhikr?” Ḥamdūn replied, “Should he not see his
failing when the heart becomes heedless due to the [audible] dhikr?”55

As for Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī who, as mentioned above, had corresponded

with al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (see also “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Nīshāpūrī
Masters” section below), he was the central Shaykh of the Nīshāpūrī school from
circa 270/883 to 298/910. He was born in Rayy, where he became the disciple of
Shāh Shujāʿ al-Kirmānī. Al-Hujwīrī tells how, on a visit with his teacher to
Nīshāpūr, he became deeply impressed with their host, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Ḥaddād, who
had been the leading spiritual master of his day. Abū Ḥafṣ intuitively noticed the
struggle in Abū ʿUthmān’s heart – torn between loyalty to his master and the
strong wish to stay with Abū Ḥafṣ. He therefore asked Shāh Shujāʿ to leave his
disciple behind, a request to which obviously Shāh obliged. Thus, Abū ʿUthmān
became Abū Ḥafṣ’ closest disciple, and eventually his successor.56
The Malāmatiyya Epistle tells us that Abū ʿUthmān trained his disciples in
the middle path between his teacher’s method and that of Ḥamdūn. According to
Abū Ḥafṣ’ teaching the disciples were encouraged to carry out many spiritual
practices, the merits of which were emphasized. Ḥamdūn, on the other hand, in
order to eliminate conceit and inflation, criticized and denounced overt spiritual
practices. Abū ʿUthmān taught the middle path. He said:

Both ways are correct; each, however, in its right time. At the beginning of
his novitiate we train the disciple in the path of practices and we encourage
him to follow it and establish himself in it. However, when he is established
and consistent in this path he becomes attached to it and dependent on it.
Then we show him the shortcomings of this path of effortful actions and our
disregard for it, until he becomes aware of his helplessness, and sees how
remote his efforts are from completion. Thus, we make sure that first he
becomes grounded in practices yet does not fall into self-delusion. How can
we show him the shortcomings of his practices if he has no practices? …
Between the two, this is the most balanced path.57

In response to a letter from Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī, a close compan-

ion of Abū ʿUthmān and another of the correspondents of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
mentioned above (see also Chapter 6 in this monograph), who asked him how
one can perfect one’s actions and states, Abū ʿUthmān wrote:

No action or state can become perfect unless God brings it about without
any wish on the doer’s part and without any awareness of the doing of the
action, and without awareness of another’s observation of the action.58

It is noteworthy that after Abū ʿUthmān’s death, the Nīshāpūrī centre seemed to
have lost its attraction and many of the disciples left to other centres, especially
to the one in Baghdād.59
86   Schools and teachers
Malāmatiyya and Karrāmiyya
The Malāmatī school of Nīshāpūr advocated the realization of a spiritual
­experience of rare psychological purity. The key terms in malāmatī psychology
were riyāʾ, iddiʿāʾ, ʿujb and ikhlāṣ. Psychologically, riyāʾ – hypocrisy, acting
ostentatiously – arises when spiritual attainments become conspicuous;
iddiʿā ʾ– pretence, presumption – is the state of self-delusion; ʿujb – conceit,
vanity – amounts to the pride and inflation which arise when one is cognizant of
one’s own spiritual attainments; ikhlāṣ – earnestness, purity – is a state in which
one’s actions and self-perception become free of the contamination of the lower-
self (the nafs). The main aim of the malāmatīs was to reach an introverted state
with regards to all one’s psychological and spiritual attainments. This aspiration is
succinctly expressed in the following saying attributed to the teaching of Abū Ḥafṣ
al-Ḥaddād, as well as in similar sayings scattered throughout the relevant literature:

They [the Malāmatīs] show off what is blameworthy and conceal what is
praiseworthy. People therefore blame them for their outward [conduct],
while they blame themselves for their inward [state] …60

Clearly, the malāmatī path represented a sharp, albeit subtle and well-codified,
reaction against movements, such as the Karrāmiyya, which, in third/ninth-cen-
tury Khurāsān, exerted a tremendous following, and which were known for their
extreme ascetical practices. The Malāmatī reaction is itself a reflection of the
anti-zuhdī tendency of certain circles within Islam right from its very begin-
ning.61 Islamic mysticism – contrary to what one may expect – is steeped in such
anti-zuhdī tendency.62
From the Aḥsan al-taqāsīm of al-Maqdisī, as well as from the biographical lists
of al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, the Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya and other heresiographical
and hagiographical sources, we learn of the popularity and the tremendous influ-
ence exerted by the Karrāmiyya – the followers of Muḥammad ibn Karrām – on
the lower classes of Khurāsān especially in Nīshāpūr.63 Edmund Bosworth in his
studies describes an extremely militant and ascetic movement, which, on account
of its popularity among the weavers and water-carriers who inhabited the north-
western sections of Nīshāpūr (according to Bulliet’s description, the poor district
known as Mānishāk), became a threat to the Ṭāhirid rulers. The disciples of Ibn
Karrām were apparently the first Muslims who established a quasi-monastic insti-
tution in Khurāsān, which they named khānqāh. Indeed, al-Maqdisī refers to them
also as Khānqāhiyyūn.64 Although the Karrāmiyya are attacked in pro-Shāfiʿite
heresiographies for their theological opinions, their extreme asceticism is nowhere
disputed. In his al-Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya, al-Subkī, who cannot be accused of
favouring them, gives the following description of their leader Ibn Karrām:

… He used to exhibit a great deal of piety (tanassuk), Godfearing (taʾalluh),

devotional worship (taʿabbud) and asceticism (taqashshuf) … Special
assemblies were conducted for him, and when he was asked about his ideas
he would say that they come from divine inspiration (ilhām) …
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   87
Quoting al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, al-Subkī continues:

I was told that he was followed by a group of the poor (fuqarāʾ), that he
used to wear dyed but unsewn sheep skin; on his head he used to wear a
white qalansuwwa, and that he used to preach in a stall [at the market] …
The governor of Sijistān had expelled him … but was afraid to execute him
because of his visible piety and asceticism (al-ʿibāda wal-taqashshuf)
which attracted to him many followers (iftatana bihi khalq kathīr, lit.: by
which many people were deluded).65

Samʿānī’s Kitāb al-Ansāb offers an indirect piece of evidence concerning the

critical attitude with which the Malāmatiyya regarded the Karrāmiyya’s extro-
verted asceticism. He tells us about a confrontation that took place between
Sālim ibn Ḥasan al-Bārusī, one of Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār al-malāmatī’s teachers,
and Muḥammad ibn Karrām:

Sālim ibn al-Ḥasan al-Bārusī came to Muḥammad ibn Karrām.

[Muḥammad] asked [al-Bārusī]: “What do you think of my followers?” He
said: “If the longing of their interior were manifest in their exterior, and the
asceticism of their exterior were concealed in their interior, then they would
have been ‘men’ (rijāl).”66 And he added: “I see much prayer, fasting and
humiliation; yet I cannot see the light of Islam upon them.”67

Interestingly, early Ṣūfī literature does not mention the Karrāmiyya. Al-Hujwīrī
in the fifth/eleventh century is the first Ṣūfī author who mentions one of their
teachers – Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb.68 This reticence is significant. In Ṣūfī ethics polem-
ics is counter-advocated. This, therefore, must have been the way in which the
early Ṣūfī tradition chose to alienate itself from these extreme ascetic circles: to
simply ignore them. Bearing in mind the tendency of the later compilatory
­literature to standardize and merge the different mystical schools, this silence
has loud reverberations. It reflects the ongoing dialectical attitude of Islamic
mysticism towards extroverted ascetical behaviour and practice.

The chivalric tradition (futuwwa)

The tradition of futuwwa (= chivalry, generosity; literally ‘youthfulness’)69
concerns us here because it was an important part of the socio-religious scene
in Khurāsān, and because many of the Khurāsānī and Nīshāpūrī teachers refer
to themselves as fityān (sg. fatā = youth; the Persian equivalent is
jawānmardī) and dedicate many sayings and even whole treatises to the topic
of futuwwa. Al-Sulamī composed an entire book on spiritual chivalry, the
Kitāb al-Futuwwa; one finds a special chapter devoted to this theme (bāb fī
‘l-futuwwa) in al-Qushayrī’s Risāla. In the study of the historical implications
of the Ṣūfī lexicon, the terminology concerned with futuwwa, similar to that
of zuhd, has caused great confusion. Hartmann, Taeschner, Trimingham and
88   Schools and teachers
others are all concerned with the differentiation between futuwwa and
malāma.70
From a socio-ethical perspective, futuwwa is the name given to the system of
closed societies of crafts and professions in medieval Persian towns. These soci-
eties, not unlike the guilds of medieval Europe, were exclusive and esoteric. Mem-
bers were not only required to belong to the relevant professions but were required
to abide by the strictest ethical and professional standards. It seems that the most
important of these ethical norms was īthār – extreme altruism to the extent of self-
sacrifice, of always giving precedence to one’s fellow-men, especially to the
fellows of the fraternity. The etiquette of the fityān demanded ­specific garments
and items of clothes by which they were distinguished from other citizens. It is
evident from the Malāmatiyya Epistle, as well as from other Ṣūfī compilations,
that the social–professional futuwwa and the spiritual futuwwa were interrelated.
Al-Qushayrī’s Risāla abounds with anecdotes about Ṣūfī fityān, most of whom
were affiliated to Khurāsānī teachers. Study of the relevant source material has led
me to the conclusion that the interrelatedness (rather than identity) between
­Futuwwa and the Malāmatiyya was based on the following principles:

a The Malāmatiyya identified with the fityān regarding their attitude to altru-
istic acts of self-sacrifice, namely, īthār.
b The Malāmatiyya masked their mystical identity under the guise of the social
futuwwa. Many of the malāmatī teachers and disciples bore epithets indi-
cating crafts and professions: al-Ḥaddād (= the ironsmith), al-Qaṣṣār (= the
bleacher), al-Ḥajjām (= the cupper), al-Khayyāṭ (= the tailor). Thus, in the
Malāmatiyya Epistle, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār says to ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥajjām:

It is better for you to be known as ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥajjām (the bath-

attendant, cupper) than as ʿAbd Allāh the Mystic (al-ʿārif) or as ʿAbd
Allāh the Ascetic (al-zāhid).71

c The Malāmatiyya adopted the term futuwwa (youthful chivalry) as a code

name for one of the stages in the mystical hierarchy, perhaps the one pre-
ceding manhood rujūliyya. Such terms as ‘man’ (rajul), ‘manliness’
(rujūliyya), ‘men’ (rijāl) as well as ‘perfect manliness’, ‘complete maturity’
(kamāl al-rujūliyya) appear quite often in al-Sulamī’s writings. In the
Malāmatiyya Epistle, for instance, we read:

Abū Yazīd was asked: “When does a man reach the stage of manhood
in this business (matā yablughu ‘l-rajul maqām al-rijāl fī hādhā
al-amr)?” He said: “When he becomes aware of the blemishes of his
lower-self (nafs) and when his charge against it increases (idhā ʿarafa
ʿuyūb nafsihi wa qawiyat tuhmatuhu ʿalayhā).”72

Most illuminating in this regard is a saying ascribed to Abū Ḥafṣ, in which

he assesses the spiritual attainments of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad
al-Rāzī (d. c.310/922):
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   89
It was told that Abū Ḥafṣ had said [concerning the above]: “A ‘youth’
(fatā) grew up in Rayy; if he keeps [faithfully] to his path and to the
[behaviour appropriate to] this attribute, he will become one of the
‘men’ (rijāl).”73

Malāmatiyya and Ṣūfiyya

As shown above, ṣūfiyya and malāmatiyya are two terms pertaining to two
different mystical schools in the third/ninth century: the Baghdādī and the
Khurāsānī schools respectively. Between these two schools, there were relation-
ships and communications. From the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, we know of disciples
who moved from one centre to another: there were Baghdādīs such as Abū Bakr
al-Wāsiṭī who moved to Khurāsān, and Khurāsānīs who moved to Baghdād or
stayed there for a while on their journey in search of knowledge (fī ṭalab al-ʿilm).
Scrutinizing the somewhat dry biographical material supplied by the Ṭabaqāt, it
seems that the Nīshāpūrī centre reached its zenith in the second half of the third/
ninth century during the period of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Ḥaddād, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār and
Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, when it attracted disciples from far and wide. After Abū
ʿUthmān’s death, however, it appears that the Nīshāpūrī disciples started to
wander off. Many found their way to the Baghdādī centre of Junayd, who died six
to ten years after Abū ʿUthmān, and at least twenty years after Abū Ḥafṣ.
There exists at least one interesting record of a meeting between the teachers
of the two schools – Abū Ḥafṣ and Junayd – with their disciples in Baghdād.
From this anecdote, which is related by al-Sulamī in the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya
(108), the interaction between the two Shaykhs shows the subtle dialectics
between these two schools. This interaction illustrates the notion of proper
manners and dignity according to the strict code of conduct and proper etiquette
(adab), especially īthār, while at the same time a hidden rebuke is also implied:

When Abū Ḥafṣ came to Baghdad, the Shaykhs of Baghdad gathered round
him and asked him what futuwwa was. He said: “You speak first, for it is
you who possess eloquence.” Junayd said: “Futuwwa is that one obliterates
the vision [of one’s acts and merits] and stops taking notice of them (isqāṭ
al-ruʾya).” Then Abū Ḥafṣ said: “How eloquently have you spoken! Yet for
me futuwwa is that one should conduct oneself according to what is right
and just (inṣāf) without expecting to be likewise treated according to what is
right and just.” Junayd responded: “Arise, my friends, for Abū Ḥafṣ has
transcended Adam and his descendants!”

In the last words of Junayd one can detect a subtle irony, perhaps even a
covert criticism of the over-submissiveness to the īthār code of Abū Ḥafṣ,
while Abū Ḥafṣ’ praise of the Baghdādī famous eloquence is also double-
edged. Indeed, just before departing, when he was again pressed by the
Baghdādīs to give his definition of futuwwa, Abū Ḥafṣ said: “Futuwwa is
90   Schools and teachers
p­ racticed by actions not by speech (al-futuwwa tuʾkhadhu istiʿmālan wa
muʿāmalatan lā nuṭqan).”74
It is also related that while Abū Ḥafṣ could not speak Arabic at all, miracu-
lously (by a karāma) he could understand the Baghdādī brethren and even
answer them in their language.

Malāmatī principles
The main principle on which the malāmatī path is based requires that one always
behold one’s self as blameworthy. Rather than being an ethical dictate, this prin-
ciple stems primarily from a psychological understanding of the nature of the self.
The ‘self’, or more accurately the ‘lower-self’ (nafs), is understood by the malāmatī
mystics as being the tempting element in the psyche, al-nafs al-ammāra bi-l-sūʾ:
‘the soul which entices one to evil’, and in this capacity it functions as the agent
provocateur in the service of Satan, lusts, and all evil inclinations. Yet, it is also
understood as the centre of ego consciousness. Most mystical systems agree that
the more one’s energy is absorbed in satisfying and gratifying the requirements of
the ego, the less energy can be put into the process of spiritual transformation. Para-
doxically, by ascetic practices alone the humiliation and surrender of the nafs
cannot be achieved. On the contrary, the ascetic path often brings about an inflated
hardening of the nafs. Inflation and conceit derive from both one’s self-appraisal
(riyāʾ, ʿujb) as well as from external social feedback (shuhra, riʾāsa). The
Nīshāpūrī school known as the Malāmatiyya taught therefore that the only way to
neutralize the nafs is to expose it to blame and humiliation in all circumstances and
conditions. Blame and humiliation should be incurred from both external agents
and from the malāmatī himself. Blame should be drawn upon one’s self not only in
accordance with what is considered blameworthy by social, religious and ethical
standards, but also – and first and foremost – with disregard to what is accepted as
praiseworthy by these standards. Evidently, this lends the malāmatiyya a clear non-
conformist character.
Perhaps the most paradoxical and bewildering aspect of malāmatī teaching
concerns blame in the arena of spiritual practices and mystical experiences.
Thus, we read in al-Sulamī:

Most of the [malāmatī] Shaykhs warn their disciples against savoring the
taste of devotional worship. This is considered by them a grave offense (min
al-kabāʾir). This is so because when the human being finds anything to be
sweet and desirable it becomes important in his eyes; and he who regards
any of his actions as good and desirable, or regards any of his actions with
satisfaction, falls from the stage of the eminent ones.75

In psychological terms, the malāmatī teachers warned their disciples against the
inflation of the ego which may accompany spiritual realization. The ultimate
purpose of this ‘contrary’ path is to reach a psychological stage of equanimity
where no importance is attached to either praise or blame.76
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   91
The best way to illustrate the complexity of the malāmatī masters’ teaching
and to expose the principles they taught is to examine their own words. The fol-
lowing excerpts from al-Sulamī’s Malāmatiyya Epistle reveal some of the depth
of their psychological intuitions in this regard:

1 Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār was asked “What is the Path of Blame?” He said: “It is
to abandon in every situation the desire to smarten up in front of people; to
renounce in all one’s states and actions the need to please people; and to be
at all times beyond blame in fulfilling one’s duties to God.”
2 Outwardly, the Malāmatīs have no special marks distinguishing them from
other people, and inwardly they make no claims with God, so that their inner-
most consciousness (sirr), which lies between them and God, can be perceived
by neither their inner hearts (afʾida) nor by their external hearts (qulūb).
3 No man can attain the rank of these people [the malāmatīs] unless he
regards all his actions as hypocrisy (riyāʾ) and all his spiritual states are pre-
sumptuous pretence (daʿāwā).
4 One of the [Malāmatī] teachers was asked, “What are the first steps in this
affair?” He answered:

To humiliate and abase the lower-self (nafs) and deprive it of what it

relies upon; of that which it finds comfort with and of what it inclines
towards; to respect others; to regard others with favour; to justify the
wrongdoings of others and to rebuke one’s own self.77

5 The Malāmatīs are those over whose innermost consciousness (asrār) God
keeps watch, pulling over their innermost consciousness the curtain of
formal appearances, so that outwardly they participate in all activities per-
formed by their fellow-men, keeping company with them in the market-
places and in earning a livelihood, while in their true essence and [spiritual]
conduct they associate with God alone.78
6 Spiritual states are valuable assets deposited in the hearts of their trustees;
whoever externalizes them, forfeits the rank of a trustee.79
7 He who wishes to understand the waywardness of the lower-self (nafs) and the
corruption of the instinctual nature, let him observe himself when praised. If
he notices that his self is favourably affected, even minutely, by what he hears,
he should realize that it has deviated from the truth, for the self relies on praise
which has no truth in it and is disturbed by blame which has no truth in it.80
8 One of them was asked concerning the Path of Blame. He replied:

It is to abandon conspicuousness (shuhra) in all matters which may dis-

tinguish one in the eyes of people, be it in one’s manner of dressing,
walking or sitting … He should rather adopt the external behaviour of
the people in whose company he is, while at the same time be isolated
from them by way of contemplation, so that his exterior person con-
forms with society so as not to be distinguished in any way, while his
interior reality is in utter distinction.
92   Schools and teachers
9 One of them was asked, “Why do you not participate in samāʿ gatherings
(musical gatherings conducive to ecstasy]?” He replied, “It is not out of
objection to samāʿ that we abstain from attending its gatherings, but rather
out of fear that we may not be able to conceal our inner spiritual states, and
this is grave for us.”81
10 One of their principles is that there are four degrees in [the practice of] the
remembrance of God (dhikr): the dhikr of the tongue, the dhikr of the heart,
the dhikr of the innermost consciousness (sirr) and the dhikr of the spirit
(rūḥ). When the dhikr of the spirit is sound, the heart and the innermost
consciousness are silenced – this is the dhikr of contemplation
(mushāhada). When the dhikr of the innermost consciousness is sound, the
heart and the spirit are silenced – this is the dhikr of awe (hayba). When the
dhikr of the heart is sound, the tongue is silenced – this is the dhikr of
divine graces. When the heart is heedless of the dhikr, then the tongue takes
over, and this is the dhikr of habit. Each one of these degrees has a blemish.
The blemish of the dhikr of the spirit is to be perceived by the innermost
consciousness. The blemish of the dhikr of the heart is that the lower-self
(nafs) should take note of it and admire it, or that it should seek to gain by it
the reward of attaining one of the spiritual ranks.82

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Nīshāpūrī masters

Among the many treatises and epistles written by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad
ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c.295/908) there are a number of letters in
which he responded to questions addressed to him by eminent correspondents.
Among these, one letter is addressed to Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, the Nīshāpūrī
malāmatī Shaykh. Two other letters are addressed to Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl
(d. 319/931) from Samarqand, a close companion of Abū ʿUthmān (more on
whom below; see also Chapter 6, “Facing Hostility”). Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
himself did not belong to the Nīshāpūrī school or any other mystical school.83
He led his mystical and literary life away from the contemporary centres. He did
not have a teacher in flesh, and thus belonged, as the Ṣūfī tradition permits, to
the uwaysiyyūn, those whose teacher is al-Khaḍir (also Khiḍr). Traditions in this
vein are reported by al-Hujwīrī84 and al-ʿAṭṭār.85 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī himself
voices explicit reservations about the depending upon “a created being
(makhlūq)” in the mystical quest rather than upon “the Creator (al-khāliq)”.86
Yet, as we can see from his letters, he maintained direct links with some of his
contemporaries among the mystics of Khurāsān.87 His letter to Abū ʿUthmān
al-Ḥīrī, as well as the other two letters mentioned above revolve around the issue
of how best to deal with the ego (nafs) which undermines all spiritual attain-
ments. Touching on this question, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī writes to Abū ʿUthmān:

I have received your letter, my brother, one letter after another. You confirm
repeatedly [how] the blemishes of the lower-self (nafs) [are an obstacle] in the
[attainment] of [spiritual] knowledge. My brother, if you can refrain from being
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   93
occupied by this obstacle, since this is other than God, do so. For God has
­servants who indeed have knowledge of Him, and they ignore all things but
Him. They are wary of being occupied with the lower-self; instead, they fear
Him. Whenever anyone of them is afflicted by its memory, his stomach turns88
as if he were about to vomit. How can one who strolls in the gardens of roses,
jasmine and wild lilies graze in the valleys of thorns? How can one who is
nourished by the remembrance of the Majestic be aware of anything but Him?89

Al-Tirmidhī’s objections to an exaggerated preoccupation with the nafs in the

mystical quest are expressed here – as well as in other letters and in many pas-
sages throughout his writings. In his letter to Abū ʿUthmān, he presents the
nucleus of his own understanding that the nafs is indeed the centre of negative
qualities: lust, desire, fear, anger, doubt, idolatry and forgetfulness. A trans-
formation (tabdīl) of these negative qualities into positive ones is possible. This
transformation is possible, however, only by means of the heart, that is, by the
capacity of the heart to “see things in their essence” (ḥaqāʾiq al-umūr). The
heart’s vision is obscured by the negative qualities of the lower-self, which
cause a veil (ghiṭāʾ) to be drawn between it and Truth. This vicious circle can be
broken by consolidating faith (īmān) which resides in the heart. Faith is
reinforced by the grace of God, and its light intensifies gradually. As the light of
faith intensifies in the heart, the impact of the ‘veil’ becomes weaker. As it
weakens, ‘the essence of things’ becomes clearer and more visible to the heart.
When the heart ‘sees’ the ‘essence of things’, its faith is transformed and
becomes ‘certitude’ (yaqīn). At this stage, when the heart has attained ‘certi-
tude’, full transformation occurs: the desire of the nafs becomes a desire for
God; fear becomes fear of God; anger becomes anger for the sake of God; lust
becomes longing for God; doubt becomes certitude, idolatry becomes pure unity
and forgetfulness becomes determination. Evidently, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
teaching, although revolving around the same psychological issues and obstacles
which occupied the malāmatiyya, advocates an utterly different approach.
Excessive concern with the nafs, regardless of its prominence in counteracting
the sincere spiritual and devotional quest, will lead nowhere as long as the seeker’s
attention remains focused on it alone. Al-Tirmidhī’s method, as he reiterates in
his letter, is based on “the science of God” (al-ʿilm bi ‘l-lāh), whereas the
method of Abū ʿUthmān and the Nīshāpūrī teachers – who are not mentioned by
name but are undoubtedly implied – is based on “the science of the self” (al-ʿilm
bi-ʿl-nafs). If one focuses one’s attention on the science of the self, says
al-Tirmidhī, one will never be released from the self. “If one occupies oneself with
the knowledge of the self’s blemishes, one will spend all one’s life in the attempt
to be released from it (fa-in ishtaghala ‘l-ʿabd bi maʿrifat ‘l-ʾuyūb baqiya ʿumrahu
fīhā wa fī ‘l-takhalluṣ minhā).” On the other hand, if one places one’s attention on
the science of God, the heart becomes stronger and its vision of Divine revelations
becomes clearer. These revelations revive the heart, and its antithesis, the self,
withers away. “When the self gives up because of the impact of the Divine
­revelations, the heart is revived by the Lord; what blemish remains then?”90
94   Schools and teachers
In the two letters addressed to Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī, al-Tirmidhī
expounds the same teaching. Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl lived for many years in
Samarqand, after having been expelled from his hometown of Balkh.91 Although
he cannot be said to have belonged to the Nīshāpūrī school, he was closely asso-
ciated with Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī. In his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, al-Sulamī quotes
Abū ʿUthmān as saying, “If I were strong enough, I would have travelled to my
brother Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl to find in his company solace for my innermost
heart (sirrī).”92 Al-Qushayrī too, in his Risāla, mentions the great esteem in
which Abū ʿUthmān held Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl.93
Based on MS. Leipzig 212, I edited the two letters of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī to
Ibn al-Faḍl and included them in my PhD dissertation.94 In one of these letters,95
al-Tirmidhī seems to be answering Muḥammad’s question as to how one attains
the knowledge of the self. Al-Tirmidhī discloses here an uncompromising
­criticism of those who spend their entire life incurring blame on their selves;
interestingly, al-Tirmidhī uses the terms dhamm and lawm rather than malāma.
He writes with no small amount of sarcasm that to think that in this way they
will control the self’s machinations is sheer delusion. The self is cunning and
wily. It will turn the means whereby one attempts to destroy it to its own
advantage. Its essence is pleasure and enjoyment. When one makes efforts to
fight it, the self finds pleasure in these very efforts. If this is done publicly, the
self will gain strength from the admiration and respect that this will draw from
the public. Thus, all these efforts are to no avail. He who has eyes to see without
deluding himself knows that the obstacle of the self will not be removed by the
­knowledge of the self or by blaming the self. Only the Creator of the self can
eliminate it. He who knows this finds refuge with Him without Whom there is
no refuge.
This correspondence, involving three Khurāsānī mystics of the third/ninth cen-
tury, is a first-hand source that corroborates the contention expressed throughout
this chapter; namely, that towards the end of this period there existed in Khurāsān
(as well as in Baghdād) a number of mystical circles, centred around diverse
teachings and teachers. These circles were mutually related by a complex and
dynamic exchange, revolving mainly around questions concerning mystical psych-
ology. Observing the many-faceted personal and communal relationships of these
circles, as well as the versatility of their opinions and practices, had been blurred
in the later Ṣūfī compilations, whose main motivation was to solidify and stand-
ardize the Ṣūfī tradition at large. The existence of such diverse trends, however,
can be identified in these very Ṣūfī compilations: when scrutinized alongside addi-
tional sources, both Ṣūfī and non-Ṣūfī, a fuller, richer and finer picture of the early
development of Islamic mysticism may be sketched.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The
Heritage of Sufism, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999 [also in 1993]), 583–613. Also
in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, Vol. 2
(London: KNP, 1992), 583–613.
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs    95
  2 Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Risālat al-Malāmatiyya, ed. Abu ‘l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī, in
al-Malāmatiyya wa ’l-ṣūfiyya wa-ahl al-futuwwa (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub
al-ʿarabiyya, 1945), 91–3; see also “Sources” section in this chapter.
  3 See Chapter 8 in this monograph.
  4 See Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic
Later Middle Period, 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press,
1994), Ch. 3, 33ff.; ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Suhrawardī, ʻawārif al-Maʿārif (Cairo:
Maktabat al-Qāhirah, 1973), Ch. 9.
  5 See, for example, Itzchak Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism
in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (London: Routledge, 2007), 24–5ff.
  6 See “The Chivalric Tradition (Futuwwa)” section.
  7 On al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s letters, see “al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Nīshāpūrī
Masters” section.
  8 On these two aspects, see Chapters 2 and 3 in this monograph.
  9 For a detailed description of medieval Nīshāpūr, its geographical position and social
structure, see Richard W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nīshapūr: A Study in Medieval
Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), I: 4–27;
see also G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia,
and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (London: F. Cass,
1966), 383ff.; C.E. Bosworth, “Nishapur: Historical Geography and History to
the Beginning of the 20th Century”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edn (updated
17 September 2010); see also the extensive bibliography there.
10 The Ṭāhirids, who ruled from their capital Nīshāpūr, were generally known as loyal
to the ʿAbbasids and as sincere upholders of the Sunna, especially vis-à-vis dissident
religious activity (e.g. Shīʿī propaganda, mystical communities, extreme asceticism,
etc.): see C.E. Bosworth, The Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical
Handbook (Edinburgh: University Press, 1967), 99–100, 103–6; C.E. Bosworth, “The
Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids”, in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4; From the Arab
Invasion to the Saljuqs, ed. R.N. Frye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1975), 98ff.; A.H. Siddiqi, Caliphate and Kingship in Medieval Persia ­(Philadelphia,
PA: Porcupine Press, 1977). For more references, see Chapter 6 in this monograph.
11 On the Buwayhid or Būyid dynasty, see Claude Cahen, “Buwayhids or Būyids”,
Encyclopedia of Encyclopedia of Islam2; and John J. Donohue, The Buwayhid
Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012: Shaping Institutions for the Future
(Leiden: Brill, 2003).
12 On the expansion of Nīshāpūr after the Muslim conquest and on the possible identifi-
cation of some quarters (maḥallāt) with earlier villages (qurā), see Bulliet, The
­Patricians, 8–9.
13 See ibid., 11–13 and the sources cited there; on the irrigation system, see Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, ed. M.J. De Goeje
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1906), 299 and 329.
14 See Bulliet, The Patricians, 13 and the sources cited; on Mulāqabādh, Naṣrabādh and
al-Ḥīra, see also 92, 193 et passim; also ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārīsī, Al-Ḥalqa al-ūlā min
taʾrīkh naysābūr al-muntakhab min al-Siyāq, ed. Muḥammad Kāzim al-Maḥmūdi
(Qumm: 1362/1982–1983), no. 1, 7; no. 182, 97; no. 336, 196; on the number and
size of the maḥallāt, see al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, 315.
15 See Sources section 2, and Bulliet, The Patricians, Part II: Patrician Families, Intro-
duction, 85–8.
16 On the affiliation of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Ḥaddād, one of the main malāmatī teachers, to
Kurādabādh, a village on the north-eastern outskirts of Nīshāpūr, see Abū ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1960), 105; the nisba of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī, the teacher of the second generation of
the malāmatīs, speaks for itself; for greater detail on these malāmatī teachers, see
96   Schools and teachers
Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār al-Malāmatī, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Ḥaddād and Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī: Two
Streams within the Nīshāpūri School section.
17 See, for example, Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le développement historique
des mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan: IIIe/IXe siècle–IVe/Xe
siècle”, Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 42, n. 4 and 50, n. 1.
18 See al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, 326; for the complex problem of determining
the origin and typology of the ʿaṣabiyyāt struggles, see Bulliet, The Patricians,
30ff.; see also Wilferd Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam
(London: Variorium Reprints, 1985), in particular “The Spread of Māturīdism
and the Turks”, II: 109–68, and “The Early Murjiʾa in Khurasan and Transoxiana”,
II: 32–9.
19 On such ‘volunteer fighters’, see C.E. Bosworth, “Mutaṭawwiʿa”, Encyclopedia of
Islam2, Deborah Tor, “Privatized Jihad and Public Order in the Pre-Seljuq Period:
The Role of the Mutaṭawwiʿa”, Iranian Studies 38 (2005): 555–73.
20 Madelung, Religious Schools, 109, 114. On the persecution in the eleventh century of
the Shāfiʿite-Ashʿarites of Nīshāpūr by the Ḥanafite-Muʿtazilites, see Heinz Halm
“Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nishapur”, Die Welt des Orients 6 (1971):
205–33; also, Heinz Halm, Die Ausbreitung der safi’itischen Rechtsschule von den
Anfängen bis zum 8/14 Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1974), 32–42. On
Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl and the madhāhib rifts, see Chapter 6 in this monograph.
21 Al-Sulamī, “The Malāmatiyya Epistle”, henceforth “ME”; see also Risālat
al-Malāmatiyya (Beirut: Manshūrāt al-jamal, 2015); French translation: Roger
Deladrière, al-Sulamī: La Luiciditê Implacable (Épître des hommes du blâme) (Paris:
Arléa, 1991).
22 Although Bulliet does not include the Sulamīs among the ‘Patricians of Nīshāpūr’, he
lists several Sulamīs among the Qāḍīs of Nīshāpūr (see Appendix II, 256–9), starting
with one Abū ʿAmr Ḥafṣ al-Sulamī, died 209/824. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī,
the author of the ME, is mentioned as the Ṣūfī teacher of several sons of so-called
‘Patrician’ families, including Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī, the author
of the famous Risāla, The Epistle on Sufism (see Bulliet, The Patricians, 152); see
also Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Jawāmiʿ ādāb al-ṣūfiyya and ʿUyūb al-nafs wa
mudāwātuhā, ed. Etan Kohlberg (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1976), 7–8
and Gerhard Böwering, “The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Sulamī”, in Islamic Studies
Presented to Charles J. Adams, eds W.B. Hallaq and D. Little (Leiden: Brill, 1991),
43–5; see also Chapter 5 in this monograph.
23 On Abū ʿAmr Ismāʿīl ibn Nujayd al-Sulamī (d. 366/977), see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt,
476–80 and the source there.
24 Richard Hartmann, “As-Sulamī’s Risālat al-Malāmatīja”, Der Islam 8 (1918):
157–203.
25 Richard Hartmann, “Futuwwa Und Malāma”, Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenlän-
dischen Gesellschaft 72 (1918): 193–8.
26 See also note 21.
27 Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī, al-Ṣila bayna ‘l-taṣawwuf wa ‘l-tashayyuʿ (Beirut: Dār al-
Andalus, 1972).
28 J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971);
see also Bernd Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien”,
ZDMG 136 (1986): 536–69; Christopher Melchert, “Sufis and Competing Movements
in Nishapur”, Iran 39 (2001): 237–47; see also note 63.
29 For further acquaintance with the ‘People of Blame’ and their associates, see
­Chapters 5 and 6 in this monograph.
30 R.N. Frye, The Histories of Nīshapūr (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1965). Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī himself was a disciple of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   97
al-Sulamī: see Jawāmiʿ ādāb al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Kohlberg, 8; The Cambridge History of
Iran, ed. R.N. Frye, Vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 471–2.
31 The second text, composed by ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī (d. 529/1134), is a
sequel to the Taʾrīkh. It is titled Kitāb al-Siyāq li-taʾrīkh Naysābūr and it covers the
fifth/eleventh century. The third text is by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Sārifinī
(d. 641/1243) and is titled Muntakhab min Kitāb al-Siyāq (“Selected excerpts from
the Siyāq”). For our purposes, therefore, only the first text is relevant. The Muntakhab
has been edited and published by Muḥammad Kāẓim al-Maḥmūdī under the title of
Al-Ḥalqa al-ūlā min taʾrīkh Naysābūr al-muntakhab mina ‘l-Siyāq.
32 On Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Wāsiṭi, see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya,
302–7; al-Sulamī, ME, 98 and 105; Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʾ fī ‘l
taṣawwuf, ed. R.A. Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill; London, Luzac, 1914) see index;
Kitāb Aḥwāl-i Nishāpūr f. 27a, line 18: “Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Wāsiṭī Abū Bakr
al-Ṣūfī [known for] his mystical experiences (ṣāhib al-aḥwāl), lived for a time in
Naysābūr then settled in Merv … and died there.” On him, see Laury Silvers, A
Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr Al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 2010); also my review: Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012): 115–22.
33 Note Bulliet’s tables on 41–2, especially the significant increase in the number of
persons entitles Ṣūfīs between 314/926 and 335/946 (41, n. 22). Bulliet’s interpreta-
tion of the statistical data, however, namely, that “from the ninth/third century to the
twelfth/sixth, there was a late starting but extremely rapid growth in the specifically
mystic Ṣūfī current, which absorbed to some degree the earlier ascetic and pietistic
currents” (42–3) is based on the understanding that Ṣūfī was the only epithet desig-
nating a Muslim ‘mystic’. On the evidence from the Nīshāpūrī groups, which calls for
a modification of such interpretation, see Mystics, not Necessarily Ṣūfīs –
Malāmatiyya and Karrāmiyya sections.
34 A growing interest in the study of the religious groups in medieval Khurāsān has pro-
duced several important studies: Jacqueline Chabbi has used the above as well as
other sources in her wide-ranging and profound analysis, written primarily from the
point of view of social history: see Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques Sur Le Dével-
oppement Historique”, 5–72; Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte Des Religiösen Denkens Im Frühen Islam
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990–1992) = Theology and Society in the Second and Third
Centuries of the Hijra: A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam, trans. John
O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 2017); also Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early
Islamic Iran (New York: SUNY Press, 1988); Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker”,
536–69. On works concerning the Karrāmiyya, see note 63.
35 See, note 13.
36 … kamā samiʿtu wāḥidan minhum yazʿamu anna maskanahu bayna ʿawāriḍ al-murd –
should one understand this as referring to God’s habitation in the cheeks of the youth,
hence ‘incarnation’ (ḥulūl)?
37 Muṭahhar ibn Ṭāhir al-Muqaddasī, Abū Zayd Aḥmad ibn Sahl al-Balkhī, Kitāb
Al-Badʾ wa-al-Taʾrīkh, ed. Clément Huart, Vol. 5 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1916), 148.
According to F. Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1967), Vol. I, 337, the book was written in 355/966.
38 According to the Introduction of the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, al-Sulamī sets out to record
the biographies of the arbāb al-aḥwāl, namely, those who have mystical experiences,
a general term for Muslim mystics. He starts off with the successors of the tābiʿū
al-tābiʿīn and finishes with his contemporaries. In his Introduction to the ME, on the
other hand, he explicitly distinguishes between the Ṣūfīs, to whom he refers as God’s
elect (khāṣṣa), and the malāmatīs, to whom he refers as the “elect of the elect”
(khāṣṣat al-khāṣṣa) – see Blame section, note 1.
39 See Chapter 1 in this monograph.
98   Schools and teachers
40 See also Chapter 5 in this monograph.
41 On Abū Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 910), see Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader, The Life, Person-
ality, and Writings of al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth Century Mystic with an
Edition and Translation of his Writings (London: Luzac & Co., E.J.W. Gibb
Memorial Series, 1976); see also, al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, Index; al-Sulamī,
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 141–50. On Abū Muḥammad Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Khuldī,
see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 454–61; al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, index. On his
affiliation with al-Junayd, see J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), Appendix A, 261. On the Baghdādī/
Junaydī archetype of ‘sobriety’ (ṣaḥw) versus the Khurāsānī/Bistāmī ‘intoxication’
(sukr), see Trimingham, The Sufi Orders, 51ff.; see also Jawid A. Mojaddedi,
“Getting Drunk with Abu Yazid or Staying Sober with Junayd: The Creation of a
Popular Typology of Sufism”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
66 (2003): 1–13.
42 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 454.
43 See Chapter 1 in this monograph.
44 See also note 32.
45 “… minhu intashara [sic] ṭarīqat al-taṣawwuf bi-naysābūr” – al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt
al-ṣūfiyya, 159.
46 See ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson (London:
Luzac & Co., 1936), Ch. 14, 176–266; cf. the passage quoted above from Abū Ṭāhir
al-Muqaddasī’s Kitāb al-Badʾ wa’l-taʾrīkh.
47 Note the telling attempt of Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, in one of the introductory chapters of
his Kitāb al-Lumāʿ, to defend the use of the name ṣūfiyya against the accusation of
innovation: “The argument that [the name ṣūfī] is an innovation invented by the
Baghdadis is absurd, since the name was known at the time of Ḥasan al-Basrī …” in
the edition of ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and ʿAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub
al-Ḥadīthah; Baghdad: Maktabat al-Muthannā, 1960), 42. Al-Sarrāj’s testimony, even
if taken at face value, strongly suggests that the adjective ṣūfī originally, possibly
since pre-Islamic times, had designated a [solitary] ascetic wearing wool; and that
subsequently it was adopted by the Baghdādīs (probably of al-Junayd’s circle) as the
collective denomination for Muslim mystics. See also Chapter 1 in this monograph.
48 On the curious ṣūfiyyat al-muʿtazila, see Josef van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresi-
ographie: Zwei Werke des Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (g. 293 H.) (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1971),
50 (text) and 43–4 of the Introduction; see also van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft,
Vol. 4, 4.2.3: “Später Verträter der Sūfīyat al-Muʿtazila”, in Section 4.2 titled “Bagdader
Muʿtaziliten”; see also Chapter 1 in this monograph.
49 Of all the Nīshāpūrī teachers, it is Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār alone who is accorded the
attribute al-malāmatī; thus al-Sulamī in Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 114 and 119; Abū
Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, 12 vols (Beirut: Dār al-
Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1997), Vol. 10, 245–7; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf,
19 and al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb. The latter dedicates a whole chapter to the topic
of ‘blame’ (Ch. 6, 62–9), in which he writes: “The doctrine of blame was spread
abroad in this sect by the Shaykh of his age Ḥamdūn Qaṣṣār (66)”; al-Hujwīrī dedi-
cates a separate section to the ‘Qaṣṣāris’, the followers of Ḥamdūn Qaṣṣār (183ff.), in
which he writes: “Ḥamdūn’s doctrine was the manifestation and divulgence of
‘blame’ (malāmat).” Ḥamdūn is also mentioned in the Aḥwāl-i Nishāpūr, f. 21b–22a
and f. 70a, but with no reference to the malāmatī epithet.
50 A list of Ḥamdūn Qaṣṣār’s close circle of disciples may be drawn based on the
information culled from the Ṭabaqāt: (1) ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Munāzil
(d. 331/943) – Ṭabaqāt, 114 and 376ff.; also, al-Qushayrī, Risāla, 26; (2) Abū ʿAlī
ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī (d. 328/940) – probably a direct disciple of Ibn
Munāzil – Ṭabaqāt, 376 and 378; also ME, 118; al-Qushayrī, Risāla, 26; and (3) Abū
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   99
Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Farrāʾ (d. 370/980) – probably the main disciple of
al-Thaqafī and Ibn Munāzil – Ṭabaqāt, – 539–40; al-Qushayrī names him as
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-malāmatī – see al-Risāla, 20; al-Farrāʾ was one of
al-Sulamī’s direct informants (see, e.g. ME, 116) – more on these networks and affili-
ations, see Chapter 5 in this monograph.
51 The list of the immediate circle of Abū ʿUthmān, as culled from the Ṭabaqāt, is nat-
urally more extensive; here are the names of a few disciples only: Maḥfūẓ ibn
Maḥmūd (d. 304/916), who probably became the successor of Abū ʿUthmān – Tabaqāt,
269–70; also ME, 102; Abū Muḥammad al-Murtaʿish (d. 328/940) – Ṭabaqāt,
356–61; Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī (d. 353/964) – Ṭabaqāt, 472–5, Kitāb
Aḥwāl-i Nishāpūr, f. 70a; ME, 119; Abū ʿAmr Ismāʿīl ibn Nujayd al-Sulamī, one of
the closest disciples of Abū ʿUthmān – Ṭabaqāt, 476–80. In Kitāb al-Lumaʿ the
latter seems to feature as al-Sarrāj’s direct transmitter of sayings ascribed to Abū
ʿUthmān – Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 103, 208 and 277.
52 On the ʿayyārūn, see Deborah Gerber Tor, Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chiv-
alry, and the ʻayyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (Würzburg: Ergon,
2007).
53 Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 183.
54 On the distinction between vocal and non-vocal dhikr, see Muḥammad Isa Waley,
“Contemplative Disciplines in Early Persian Sufism”, in The Heritage of Sufism, ed.
Leonard Lewisohn, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 497–548, especially 526–34.
55 ME, 91–2.
56 See al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Mahjūb, 132–4; on Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥīrī
see also al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 159ff. On Abū Ḥafṣ ʿAmr ibn Salāma
al-Ḥaddād al-Naysābūrī (d. 260/874), see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 105ff.; both
Abū Ḥafṣ and Abū ʿUthmān are mentioned in the Aḥwāl-i Nishāpūr (f. 70a) among
the Nīshāpūrī masters (mashāyikh) without any reference to either ṣūfī or malāmatī.
On the special relationship between Abū Ḥafṣ and Abū ʿUthmān, see also al-Sarrāj,
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 177.
57 ME, 103.
58 ME, 106.
59 Thus, for example, according to al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, Abū Muḥammad
al-Murtaʿish, Abū ʿAmr al-Zajjājī, ʿAlī ibn Bundār.
60 ME, 89.
61 On this anti-zuhdī attitude in Early Islam, see Chapter 2 in this monograph.
62 On the dialectic between ‘mysticism’ and ‘asceticism’ in the Ṣūfī tradition, see Part I
in this monograph and also the Introduction. Note also the following statements
voiced by al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 30ff.; al-Qushayrī, Risāla, bāb fī ‘l-taṣawwuf,
126. A warning that the ascetic custom of wearing rough wool or a patched garment
might become ‘ostentation’ (shuhra) is voiced by al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) in
al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wa’l-jawāriḥ, ed. ʿAbdel Kader A. Aṭā (Cairo: ʻĀlam al-
Kutub, 1969), 103ff. – for example, 108: “I would beware of ostentation (shuhra) [in
wearing ascetic-like clothes] lest it should corrupt the hearts so that they become con-
trived or conceited or arrogant or domineering …” In this vein it is related by
al-Muḥāsibī that Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, one of the tābiʿūn, when asked about the
type of clothing that should be worn by pious Muslims, said; “Purify your heart and
wear whatever you like!” Cf. the dictum ascribed to Bayāzīd Bisṭāmī: “Three [types]
of men are the most obscured from God: the scholar (al-ʿālim) by his erudition, the
pious worshipper (al-ʿābid) by his piety, and the ascetic (al-zāhid) by his asceticism”
(ME, 96–7).
63 On the Karrāmiyya in Khurāsān, see C.E. Bosworth, “Karrāmiyya”, Encyclopedia of
Islam, 2nd edn; C.E. Bosworth, “The Rise of the Karāmiyya [sic] in Khurāsān”,
Muslim World 50 (1960), 6–14; Bulliet, The Patricians, 62–4; Josef van Ess, Unge-
nutzte Texte zur Karramiya: Eine Materialsammlung (Heidelberg, 1980); Wilferd
100   Schools and teachers
Madelung, “Sufism and the Karrāmiyya”, in Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran
(Albany, NY: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 39–53; Margaret Malamud, “The Politics of
Heresy in Medieval Khurasan: The Karramiyya in Nishapur”, Iranian Studies 27
(1994): 37–51; also see “Malāmatiyya and Karrāmiyya” section above, and note 28.
64 See also ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad al-Samʿānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1912), s.v. Khānqāhī.
65 Tāj al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʻAlī al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-Kubrā, Vol. 2
(Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1964), 304–5. Cf. van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft, Vol. 2, 609ff.
66 Rijāl, that is, those who have attained the rank of ‘spiritual manhood’ (rujūliyya); see
nn 72–3.
67 Samʿānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb, 159 (quoted by ʿAffīfi, Malāmatiyya, 38); see also van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft, Vol. 2, 610.
68 On Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 609.
69 On chivalry and Sufism during this period, see Muhammad Jaʿfar Mahjub, “Chivalry
and Early Persian Sufism”, in The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, Vol. 1
(Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 549–81.
70 See, for example, Hartmann, “Futuwwa und Malāma”, 193–8; Franz Taeschner, “Der
Anteil des Sufismus an der Formung des Futuwwideals”, Der Islam 24 (1937),
43–74; Franz Taeschner, “Futuwwa”, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, Vol. 2, 961–9
and the sources cited there. See also Trimingham, The Sufi Orders, 24; Marshall G.S.
Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1974–1977),
Vol. II, 126ff.
71 ME, 94. Likewise, al-Sulamī (ME, 109) recounts how Bishr al-Ḥāfī (= the Barefoot)
one day knocked at the door of one of the Shaykhs. “Who is it?” a voice asked. “It is
I … Bishr al-Ḥāfī,’ he replied. The Shaykh’s daughter replied: “If you bought a pair
of sandals for two dāniqs, you would have gotten rid of this name (law ishtarayta
naʿlayni bi-dāniqayn la-saqaṭa ʿanka hādhā ‘l-ism).”
72 ME, 95. Cf. Abū Ḥafṣ’s saying: “He who abides by the right rules of conduct during
the mystical moments has reached the stage of ‘men’. (man lazima ādāb al-awqāt
balagha mablagh al-rijāl)” – al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 110.
73 nashaʾa bil-l-rayy fatā; in baqiya ʿalā ṭarīqatihi wa-simatihi ṣāra aḥada al-rijāl –
al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 288.
74 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 108.
75 ME, 96.
76 In the chapter “On Blame” in Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 68–9, al-Hujwīrī relates a personal
anecdote as an illustration of the state of equanimity towards both praise and blame
which he had experiences after being subjected to abuse by fellow Ṣūfīs.
77 ME, 90.
78 ME, 91.
79 ME, 92.
80 ME, 96.
81 ME, 103.
82 ME, 104.
83 Cf. Bernd Radtke, “The Concept of Wilāya in Early Sufism”, in The Heritage of
Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 483–96.
84 Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 229.
85 See Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat
al-Awliyāʾ (Memorial of the Saints), trans. A.J. Arberry (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1979), 244ff.
86 See his “Answer to a letter from Rayy”, in which he seems to respond to an
anguished correspondent who feels he has regressed in his spiritual path after having
met with a so-called teacher. Al-Tirmidhī’s response is: “This is what happens when
 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs   101
one searches for the Creator by means of a created being. (hākadhā yakūnu shaʾnu
man yaṭlubu al-khāliq bi-l-makhlūq).” – Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhi,
Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmid, ed. Brend Radtke (Beirut: Steiner, 1992),
171–2 (Arabic section).
87 For more on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl, see Chapter 6 in this
monograph.
88 I prefer to read here MʿDTH (maʿidatuhu = his stomach) rather than MʿRQH as in
Radtke’s edition.
89 See Radtke, Drei Schriften, 191 (Arabic section).
90 Ibid., 191–2 (Arabic).
91 See al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 206–11, and the sources mentioned there; see also
Chapter 6 in this monograph.
92 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 206.
93 For letters of Abū ʿUthmān to Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl, see al-Sulamī, ME, 106;
al-Qushayrī, Risāla, 25.
94 See Sara Sviri (Burg), “The Mystical Psychology of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī”, PhD
thesis (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1979) in Hebrew and Arabic; Vol. 2, 77–86
(Arabic section).
95 MS. Leipzig, f. 66a–68b; ibid., 82ff. (Arabic).
5 Teachers and disciples in
Baghdād and Nīshāpūr1

Introduction: Al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb al-asrār

The study presented in this chapter surveys texts and sources that highlight a
transitional point in the history of Islamic mysticism. This transition entails the
eventual inclusion of the mystical school of Nīshāpūr within the mystical school
of Baghdād during the fourth/tenth century, after the death of central masters.
This inclusion also heralded the appearance of the literary genre known as Ṣūfī
compilation, which portray, overall, a picture of Ṣūfism as an all-inclusive
Islamic mystical system. At the same time, these compilations also contain proof
texts that allow us to trace local differences and affiliations and to follow, to an
extent, the process of transition from local groups to global brotherhoods. The
study was inspired by two little-known entities: al-Khargūshī’s Ṣūfī compilation
Tahdhīb al-asrār, and the figure of Ibn Munāzil, one of the Nīshāpūrī mystics
who ended up gravitating, along with other Nīshāpūrīs, towards the teachings of
the Baghdādī teachers. One of the questions that this study touches upon is the
Shīʿī presence in Nīshāpūr and the possibility that Nīshāpūr was the birth-place
of ideas and practices which were later introduced into both Shīʿism and Ṣūfism.
The present chapter follows several lines of enquiry: an attempt to amend an
enduring graphic error committed by a long line of scribes, as a result of which
two historical personalities, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak and the less known ʿAbd
Allāh b. Munāzil have become confused; to reinstate the latter, an early mystic
from Nīshāpūr, within the history of the early Islamic mystical centres; to
restore the significance of the Tahdhīb al-asrār, an underestimated fourth/tenth
century compilation of Ṣūfī lore; to map, albeit in rough lines, the routes and
networks that connected the early mystics of Baghdād and Khurāsān; and, by
following the dialogue between Ibn al-Munāzil of Nīshāpūr and al-Shiblī of
Baghdād, two of this chapter’s protagonists, to contemplate how to perform the
ḥajj correctly – inwardly as well as externally. If this programme sounds pre-
sumptuous, let me defend it by expressing the hope that, in the final resort, the
interdependence of all the above topics will be shown.
Some years ago, I was given three bound folders containing the photocopies
of a manuscript from Berlin by the late Prof. Kister. The title page of MS
Sprenger 832 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ahlwardt
 Teachers and disciples   103
2819) identifies the text and its author as Kitāb tahdhīb al-asrār li-ʿAbd al-Mālik
b. Abī ʿUthmān al-Wā’iẓ al-Kharkūshī;2 the English description beneath the
Arabic title introduces it as “System of Ṣūfism by Kharkhūshy, 580pp Copied in
848”. In Ahlwardt’s catalogue, there is a detailed account of the work’s
­chapters. It is introduced as “Darstellung des Çūfismus in 70 Kapiteln, von ʿAbd
elmelik ben moḥ. ben ibrāhīm elh̔ arkūśī ennīsāburī abū saʿd ‡406/1015.”3 For
some years, I did not consult the text. Eventually, however, contemplating a
methodology for the study of early Ṣūfī compilations, I felt intrigued to embark
on an examination of al-Khargūshī’s work. Fortuitously, I found it surprisingly
rich with material and information unfamiliar to me from other sources. I found
the material vital for refining our understanding of the early manifestations of
Islamic mysticism; especially the nature of the local mystical schools during the
third/ninth–fourth/tenth centuries. This led to a fresh insight into the historical
shift of Islamic mysticism from locally based centres to a global system. In other
words, how the local centres of teachers and disciples became amalgamated into
the ethical-mystical movement known generically as Ṣūfism. The fact that
al-Khargūshī is a contemporary and compatriot of the much better known and
prolific author Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, adds significance to his repres-
entation (Darstellung). Both were fourth/tenth century residents of Nīshāpūr
whose journey to the mystical path went through the same teachers: among
al-Khargūshī’s teachers al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī lists Ismāʿil b. Nujayd, Bishr b.
Aḥmad al-Isfrāʾīnī, ʿAlī b. Bundār al-Ṣūfī, and Abū Sahl al-Ṣuʿlūkī. Both Ibn
Nujayd and al-Ṣuʿlūkī played an important role in the life of al-Sulamī, too: the
former, a close disciple of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī – for many years the head of the
malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr – was al-Sulamī’s maternal grandfather and was respons-
ible for his grandson’s religious education. In fact, al-Sulamī took on his nisba
rather than his father’s – al-Sulamī was the mother’s nisba. The latter,
al-Ṣūʿlūkī, initiated al-Sulamī into the mystical path and gave him a licence to
teach.4 The place of al-Sulamī as a major source for the study of early Islamic
mysticism has been established through numerous studies and scholarly editions
of his books and treatises.5 As for his Qurʾān commentary, the Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr –
“this treasure-trove of contemplative Ṣūfī thought” – scholars unanimously
acknowledge its importance.6 The fact that al-Khargūshī stems from the same
locality as al-Sulamī (the latter was a somewhat younger resident of Nīshāpūr)
as well as from the same social and religious milieu, and that in their compila-
tion of Ṣūfī anecdotes and dicta they occasionally made use of the same inform-
ants,7 all these lend al-Khargūshī’s work weight and promise a rewarding study.
Thus, it seemed evident to me from the outset that the juxtaposition of the
Tahdhīb al-asrār with the well-researched works of al-Sulamī has the potential-
ity of enhancing our familiarity with the individuals who shaped Islamic mysti-
cism at its early period. I was particularly interested in tracing the networks and
affiliations of these individuals.
It is, therefore, odd that Ṣūfī scholarship has taken little notice of
al-Khargūshī and of his Tahdhīb al-asrār.8 A.J. Arberry, who had consulted the
Berlin MS at the India Office Library in London (now part of the British
104   Schools and teachers
Library), gave a short and rather uncomplimentary description and evaluation of
the text and its author.9 In the years since Arberry made his observations, only a
small number of scholars have referred, rather fleetingly, to the work; primarily
Louis Massignon10 and Paul Nwyia.11 This oversight has been rectified by
­Nasrallah Pourjavady, whose article in Persian on the Malāmatiyya relies heavily
on the Tahdhīb al-asrār.12 In most textbooks and studies on Islamic mysticism,
one looks in vain for a reference to or a citation from al-Khargūshī’s work.13
Arberry’s paper opens with the comment that, as a compiler of Ṣūfī lore, the
date of al-Khargūshī’s death – 1015 or 101614 – places him, earlier than al-Sulamī
(d. 1021), al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1039) and al-Qushayrī (d. 1072) but later than al-Sarrāj
(d. 988), al-Kalābādhī (d. 995) and Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 996). “These com-
parisons are important,” remarks Arberry, “for they show Khargūshī as being a
sufficiently early writer in the genre of systematic Ṣūfīsm”.15 It is vis-à-vis this
biographic detail that Arberry rightly expresses his surprise that al-Khargūshī “is
not included in Nicholson’s list of eight authorities for the history of early
Ṣūfīsm”16 and that “he does not appear to have received the attention which he
deserves.” Arberry singles out Massignon, who has used al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb
in his study of al-Ḥallāj (ad loc).17 He then sets out “to supplement the somewhat
exiguous account of the work given by Ahlwardt, and also to estimate the true
value of al-Khargūshī’s manual as a primary source.” What follows is a brief,
unflattering description of the text at hand. To begin with, Arberry doubts the
­reliability of al-Khargūshī’s transmitter, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Shirāzī. Basing his
judgement on al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, who has marked al-Shīrāzī as a weak (ḍa‘īf)
authority on Ḥadīth, Arberry concludes that “His reputation does not inspire confi-
dence”.18 Arberry’s doubts as to the reliability of the text are enhanced by the fact
that in ff. 10b–11a of the Berlin MS he finds a long saying attributed to
ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, which can be nothing but an interpolation to the original text,
since ʿAbd al-Qādir died in 561/1166. As for the work itself, he claims that:

the structure of the Tahdhīb al-asrār follows so closely that of [al-Sarrāj’s]

Kitāb al-lumaʿ, that there can be no reasonable doubt that Khargūshī (or his
editor) took al-Sarrāj, without the slightest acknowledgement, as a model …
page after page bears witness to plagiarism.19

Now, without digressing into a lengthy discussion of plagiarism in Ṣūfī or other

medieval writings, it should be said that scholars of medieval texts, who are
trained to pursue ‘parallels’, will concur, at least to some degree, with the fol-
lowing statement:

Concepts such as ‘authorship’ and ‘plagiarism’ did not exist in the Middle
Ages. Before 1500 or thereabouts people did not attach the same import-
ance to ascertaining the precise identity of the author of a book they were
reading or quoting as we do now.20

It seems that a somewhat superficial examination of chapter headings and of a

few pages at random was sufficient for Arberry to conclude with a scathing
 Teachers and disciples   105
v­ erdict (which, one might add, is at odds with his initial positive remarks): “… it
will be evident that the Tahdhīb al-asrār is not to be assigned to the same rank
as a primary source for the history of Ṣūfīsm as that occupied by the works of
al-Sarrāj, al-Makkī, al-Kalābādhī and al-Qushayrī …”.21 Whether it was Arber-
ry’s verdict that caused scholarship to shy away from consulting al-Khargūshī’s
work or it was just an unfortunate oversight is hard to tell. Although al-Sulamī,
too, was the object of Arberry’s misgivings,22 he has fared much better in
­scholarly estimation.
The omission of Tahdhīb al-asrār from the study of the early phases of
Islamic mysticism seems to me more than an inadvertent oversight. It reflects
the state of research in which, despite decades of study by eminent scholars, no
proper methodology for approaching early Ṣūfī literature has been set up or pro-
posed. It seems to me that the formative period of Islamic mysticism cannot be
properly described without an attempt to map the affiliations that connected indi-
vidual mystics of this period to one another.23 Although the distinction between
the mystical trends of Baghdād and Khurāsān has long been acknowledged,
albeit along lines which are not necessarily backed up by the textual evidence,24
Ṣūfī literature reflects a far greater complexity of practices, exchange and move-
ment than has hitherto been recognized. The study of divergences and distinctive
affiliations in the history of Islamic mysticism has been carried out mainly con-
cerning the latter-day Ṣūfī ṭarīqas. But, in fact, Ṣūfī compilations of the tenth–
eleventh centuries – particularly when read with affiliations in mind, also reveal
multiplicity and variegation in social set-ups and codes of practice as well as in
points of doctrine. Such a reading breaks up the linear continuity of the Ṣūfī text;
groups together sayings and anecdotes from a variety of sources – according
to their authors and transmitters in the first place and according to their subject
matter in the second place; uses the tools of the biographical and historical liter-
ature not only in order to offer a catalogue of the individuals mentioned in say-
ings and anecdotes, but in order to review the socio-historical and local context
of their activities and thus place them in their proper Sitz im Leben. Such a
reading is, it seems to me, as significant for the understanding of Islamic mysti-
cism as attempting to describe the didactic, theoretical and phenomenological
aspects of Ṣūfism based on pious, devotional or ecstatic sayings in isolation.
For the advance of such a methodology, al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb is indispens-
able. Far from being a second-hand plagiarism of al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, it
contains an enormous stock of anecdotes and traditions sweeping over hundreds
of mystics and pious men from both Baghdād and Khurāsān and covering the
second/eighth–fourth/tenth centuries. Although I have not carried out a system-
atic comparison between the Tahdhīb and the Lumaʿ, I have compared the
material in these works pertaining to the third/ninth century Ibrāhīm
al-Khawwāṣ, chosen at random from among the less central Ṣūfī figures. These
are the results of my empirical pilot: Al-Sarrāj has collected twenty-eight items
on him and al-Khargūshī twenty-five; out of these, only four are clear parallels.
This haphazard check goes some way to suggest that al-Khargūshī was no mere
copyist or, worse, plagiarist, of al-Sarrāj. Another example of an account that
106   Schools and teachers
al-Khargūshī includes in his compilation, for which a parallel is yet to be found,
is a grim anecdote concerning the grandchild of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. In Bāb fi
dhikr al-firāsa, al-Khargūshī demonstrates the extraordinary gift of foresight (or
intuition) possessed by Abū Bakr al-Warrāq and a certain Muḥammad b. Ḥātim
al-Tirmidhī (possibly the former’s disciple). The two, together with many other
Sheikhs, were invited to a banquet that Muḥammad b. ʿAlī (= al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī) threw for the blessing of his (newly born?) grandchild. Abū Bakr
and ibn Ḥātim, the narrator, having looked at the child, decided unanimously to
refrain from blessing him. And indeed, this child, the narrator tells us, turned out
to be “the wickedest person of his time and the greatest blood shedder (kāna
aẓlama al-nās fī ʿaṣrihi wa-asfakahum lil-dimāʾ).” He became a warlord and
was killed at the gates of Jurjān while drunk.25 Was it out of deference for
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī that this story was suppressed and was not circulated by
other authors too? This is a matter for speculation. However, on firmer ground,
this remarkable anecdote, which I have not yet been able to trace in any other
compilation or source, suggests that the Tahdhīb contains supplements to what
has been hitherto available to students of Ṣūfism through other, better known,
authors such as al-Sarrāj, al-Sulamī, al-Qushayrī and others.26 A detailed and
systematic scrutiny of al-Khargūshī’s Ṣūfī compilation is, therefore, a
desideratum.

Shīʿīs in Nīshāpūr
There are two religious movements that existed in Nīshāpūr for which the evid-
ence of the Tahdhīb is particularly valuable: first, the mystical-ethical trend
known as the Path of Blame (the Malāmatiyya) and second, Shīʿism, in
­particular some Shīʿī traditions which were incorporated into the Ṣūfī lore. Con-
cerning the first trend, I have given in a separate chapter a detailed account of
the Malāmatiyya, also known as the Nīshāpūrī Path (madhhab ahl Naysābūr).27
In the “ ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil and the Nīshāpūri ‘path of blame’ ” section, I
shall attempt to bring into relief, with the help of the Tahdhīb, the obscure, and
often confused, figure of an eminent Malāmatī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil and,
intrigued by a unique story included in the Tahdhīb, I shall try in the “Ibn
Munāzil and al-Shiblī” section, to trace his affiliations not only with the
Nīshāpūrī circle but also with the Baghdādī teachers, in particular with al-Shiblī.
As for the Shīʿī perspective, the Tahdhīb is, without doubt, a source that
throws light on the question of Shīʿī material that became included in Ṣūfī liter-
ature and affords new insights as to the time and place at which this inclusion
took shape. Since the pioneering work of Paul Kraus, Louis Massignon, Paul
Nwyia,28 and the ongoing research of Gerhard Böwering29 concerning the inclu-
sion of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s exegesis within al-Sulamī’s Qurʾān commentary
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, we know how significant the sixth Imām’s exegetical tradition
had been for the development of early Ṣūfī vocabulary and thought. It has
become common knowledge that Shīʿī tradition, in particular the tradition that
bears the name of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, became part of the non-Shīʿī mystical lore
 Teachers and disciples   107
included in the teaching of Sufism. It now emerges that al-Khargūshī, too,
30

includes in the Tahdhīb many traditions that stem from the Shīʿī Imāms. Inter-
spersed within his chapters on maʿrifa, shawq, mushāhada, yaqīn, murāqaba,
waraʿ, zuhd, ṣabr – as well as other chapters whose headings reflect the ethical-
mystical terminology associated with Sufism – one finds scores of sayings and
anecdotes pertaining to ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, ʿAlī b. Mūsā
al-Riḍā and other dignitaries of the ahl al-bayt. One is particularly struck by the
number of traditions, which portray the Shīʿī Imāms as paragons of generosity
(sakhāʾ) and good character (ḥusn al-khuluq). Now, when we consider that
al-Sulamī and al-Khargūshī were contemporaries, and that both were schooled
and brought up within the same milieu, namely, that Nīshāpūrī milieu named by
Richard Bulliet “the Patricians of Nīshāpūr”,31 it seems only plausible to suggest
that the Shīʿī material adduced by both authors bears witness to a local
Nīshāpūrī tradition, in which the values of exemplary etiquette, a religiosity that
is inwardly oriented, as well as the terminology that conveys these values and
attitudes, were shared by Shīʿīs and non-Shīʿīs alike.
This suggestion is corroborated by historical sources. A Shīʿī community,
consisting of distinguished descendants of ʿAlī and the Imāms, descendants of
dignitaries exiled there in the second/eighth century existed in Nīshāpūr. Rel-
evant material can be gleaned from al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī’s Taʾrīkh Naysābūr
(or, rather, from the various summaries and citations from it scattered in both
Sunnite and Shīʿī aʿlām literature).32 This work, or works, as well as subsequent
works based on it, in particular the first facsimile in Frye’s edition,33 is vital for
cross-checking information on Nīshāpūrīs associated with the early ethical-­
mystical movements. Among the residents of Nīshāpūr who belong to the fourth
generation after the Prophet, al-Ḥākim lists “Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Mūsā b.
Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib al-Riḍā Abū
al-Ḥusayn.”34 In an atypical manner, deviating from the pattern of succinct sum-
maries which are attached to most referrents, the information on the eighth
Imām extends over several lines. It tells us that al-Riḍā arrived in Nīshāpūr in
the year 200/815 and that in 203/818 he was summoned by al-Maʾmūn to Marv
and was then martyred in Sanābād in the vicinity of Ṭūs. It then goes on to cite a
saying concerning a soteriological promise made by al-Riḍā to anyone who
visits his tomb.35 In Tahdhīb al-asrār, the eighth Imām features as a model of
modesty and good character. In Bāb fī dhikr ḥusn al-khuluq, al-Khargūshī tells,
without an isnād, how ʿAlī b. Mūsā, who was black skinned,36 was mistaken in
the ḥammām for a bath attendant and assumed the duties of the attendant
(ḥammāmī), rather than putting the matter right.37
In the Talkhīṣ of Taʾrīkh Naysābūr, in the chapter devoted to the tombs and
shrines of Nīshāpūr which have become sites of pilgrimage (mazārāt), we find
that in the cemetery of the Amīr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṭāhir there was an enclosure
(ḥaẓīra) dedicated to the tombs of ahl al-bayt. Here, in a sacred garden (rawḍa
muqaddasa), was the tomb of the martyred ‘imām’ (here, no doubt, in the
general sense of leader) Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar ibn al-Ḥasan38 b. ʿAlī b. ‘Umar b.
al-Ḥusayn b. [ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib] Amīr al-Muʾminīn. Interestingly, according to
108   Schools and teachers
this source, the laqab of this individual is Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṣūfī.39 In the Tahdhīb,
al-Khargūshī mentions an Abū Jaʿfar al-Naysābūrī al-Ṣūfī, but there is no way
of identifying him with this Shīʿī leader.40 Rather, this Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar
(nicknamed Karkān?) may be identified, as a follower of the Jārūdiyya branch of
the Zaydīs41 who led in Mecca a revolt against al-Maʾmūn in the year 199/814–815
and was then captured and sent by al-Maʾmūn to Khurāsān.42 This Abū Jaʿfar
was probably the son of Jaʿfar b. al-Ḥasan al-Nāṣir, whose laqab was al-Dībāja.
Al-Shaybī cites al-Fāsī’s Shifāʾ al-gharām bi-akhbār al-bayt al-ḥarām, accord-
ing to which “Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq [sic!], whose laqab was al-Dībāj,
used to attend prayer in Mecca with two hundred men of the Jārūdiyya; they
were wearing wool and the signs of goodness were manifest upon them.”
(my emphasis – S.S.).43
Another descendant of the House of ʿAlī, who, according to the talkhīṣ, was
buried in the Tlagird (?) cemetery of Nīshāpūr, is Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b.
Zayd b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. The same person is mentioned
also in a later section titled “The names of the great ones who are buried in the
town of Nīshāpūr cited from the writing of Khwāja Quṭb al-Dīn.”44 Here it is
related that he was a ‘chivalrous’ youth ( jawānmard)45 known as Abū Shakhta-
waih and that he was one of the martyrs of former years.46 We are also told
that his tomb is a shrine where prayers are answered (‫)تربة او محل اجابت دعاست‬.
The talkhīṣ mentions also “Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh and his eldest son
Muḥammad b. Muḥammad whose laqab is ziyāre or ziyāde (should probably
be zubāre),47 the chief of the Sayyids of Khurāsān (naqīb-e sādāt-e Khurāsān).
“These two noble ones and their children and grandchildren,” we read, “are
buried in the ʿAbd Allāh Ṭāhir cemetery which is called the Cemetery of the
Sayyids.”48
This evidence concerning noble Shīʿīs in Nīshāpūr is thought provoking.49
Reflecting over the evidence culled from the cluster of al-Sulamī, al-Khargūshī,
and the Nīshāpūrī chronicles, one ponders the conjunction of the following: a)
among the descendants of the ahl al-bayt, who had been exiled to Khurāsān in
the second/eighth century, there were those who settled in Nīshāpūr and who
became distinguished inhabitants there; the possibility that some of them may
have carried on their pious and ascetic practices associated with Jaʿfar b.
al-Ḥasan al-Dībāja and the Jārūdiyya for which they may have earned the laqab
Ṣūfī; the fact that al-Khargūshī, as al-Sulamī, his better-known contemporary
and compatriot, has included in his Tahdhīb al-asrār scores of sayings and anec-
dotes emanating from the ahl al-bayt; and the fact that the futuwwa, that highly
ethical chivalrous movement, which has characterized the Nīshāpūrī-Malāmatī
mystics, has been associated also with Shīʿism and its idealized image of ʿAlī
and the Imāms as fityān50 – all these permit us to propose that it was in Nīshāpūr
that a shared Ṣūfī-Shīʿī tradition had developed – in ethics, exegesis, devotion
and spiritual conduct – but not in theology and doctrine.
To sum up my conclusions thus far: there is no doubt that, for the study of the
origins, complexity and development of the early mystical schools in Nīshāpūr,
and for the understanding of their openness to Shīʿī ethical ideals, norms of
 Teachers and disciples   109
c­onduct and terminology, the Tahdhīb al-asrār is as important a source as
al-Sulamī’s works. I am convinced, therefore, that works by these two authors –
their matn as well as their isnād – should be studied in conjunction with the
­pertinent chronicles and hagiographies. We should, I believe, review the per-
spective from which these two Nīshāpūrī Ṣūfī authors – and later on al-Qushayrī
too – write: their perspective is still local, immersed in Nīshāpūrī traditions and
attitudes, while they are already at a juncture from which an integrated and all-
embracing movement of Ṣūfism is envisaged and promoted by the very same
authors and educators.51

ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil and the Nīshāpūrī ‘path of blame’

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Munāzil, according to
al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, was a disciple of Abū Ṣāliḥ Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār,
one of the most eminent masters of Nīshāpūr. He was particularly respected and
admired by Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī. He died in Nīshāpūr in the year 331/942–3.52
He was versed in the study of Ḥadīth (al-Sulamī mentions a ḥadīth narrated to
him by his own father).53 Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī, Ibn Munāzil’s admirer, died in
328/939–940 according to what was reported to al-Sulamī by his own father.54
Al-Sulamī tells us that Abū ʿAlī met (laqiya)55 both Abū Ḥafṣ and Ḥamdūn
al-Qaṣṣār, that it to say, the two Nīshāpūrī teachers who were associated with
the malāmatī teaching in Nīshāpūr.56 Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī later abandoned the
legal sciences (ʿulūm al-sharʿ) in which he had been a leader (imām), in favour
of the mystical science (ʿilm al-Ṣūfiyya)57 and excelled in his discourse on the
blemishes of the self and the faults of actions (kāna aḥsana ‘l-mashāyikh
kalāman fī ʿuyūb al-nafs wa-āfāt al-aʿmāl).58 This earned him a double-edged
rebuff from Ibn Munāzil, who said: “Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī should have discoursed
with his own self (i.e. in the sense of admonishing it) rather than with (other)
people; this is why he does not attain to the blessings of his own words.
words.”59 This rebuff is congruous with the twenty-first malāmatī principle,
which al-Sulamī introduces in his Risālat al-Malāmatiyya; according to it “One
of their principles is to refrain from talking and showing off in matters of know-
ledge.”60 This also ties in with b. Munāzil’s outspokenness, reflected in the
­following anecdote, which is recorded in untypical detail by al-Ḥākim
al-Naysābūri. In this anecdote, narrated by Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Mulāqabādhī,
another malāmatī from Nīshāpūr, three Nīshāpūrīs – the narrator, Abū ʿAlī
al-Thaqafī and Ibn Munāzil – set out on a pilgrimage together. Upon their arrival in
Baghdād, al-Mulāqabādhī and Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī express their wish to pay a visit
to the renowned local sheikh, Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd. Ibn Munāzil, however,
declines and stays behind. When on the next day, and despite their enthusiastic
impressions and the explicit invitation extended to the three of them by al-Junayd,
he again declines, they insist on an explanation. This is what he says:

Beautiful speech is like excellent food: it goes into a man’s mouth and then
the surplus goes out. The same applies to mystical knowledge (ʿilm
110   Schools and teachers
al-maʿrifa): God throws the best [piece of knowledge] into the [interior of]
someone He chooses, then what comes out through his tongue and what
God makes him express is its worst [part]. I would rather forego the chance
of meeting Abū al-Qāsim [al-Junayd] than be tricked into receiving from
him the worst bit, while the best remains with him.61

The two companions, astounded at his blunt explanation, return to al-Junayd, who
enquires about their friend. They tell him what he has said. Abū al-Qāsim bursts
weeping, almost loses consciousness, and keeps silent throughout the entire visit.62
This story goes some way to portray the rigorous introversion with which Ibn
Munāzil, following, no doubt, the teaching of his master Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār,
lived out his spiritual life. On Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, whose full name is Ibn
ʿUmāra Abū Ṣāliḥ Ḥamdūn b. Aḥmad, al-Sulamī tells us in the Ṭabaqāt
al-ṣūfiyya that he was the Sheikh of ahl al-malāma of Nīshāpūr; that of all his
disciples no one adopted his particular method more seriously than ʿAbd Allāh
b. Munāzil;63 that he died in Nīshāpūr in the year 271/884–885, and that he was
buried there in the cemetery of al-Ḥīra.64 From these references and anecdotes,
we derive some preliminary notions as to the affiliation that bonded these men of
Nīshāpūr and the complex nature of this affiliation.
Now we arrive at the thorny question of the confusion surrounding the iden-
tity of ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil. The solution may be buried in the ruinous streets,
quarters and cemeteries of ninth–tenth centuries Nīshāpūr, but the information
that can be culled from their remains is ambiguous and confusing. The Taʾrīkh
Naysābūr, citing from Khwāja Quṭb al-Dīn,65 gives a list of the “Names of the
great ones who are buried in Nīshāpūr” (151–3) among whom, in the cem-
etery of ʿAbd Allāh Ṭāhir,66 we find the names of Ḥamdūn Qaṣṣār, Abū ʿAlī
Thaqafī and ʿAbd Allāh b. Mubārak [!] (153). But a few pages earlier, in the
section on the tombs of holy men who became places of pilgrimage (mazārāt) in
Nīshāpūr, the same source gives the following names: Ḥamdūn Qaṣṣār, Abū ʿAlī
al-Thaqafī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil and Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Būshanjī
(145). Evidently, we are dealing here with a scribal error: the graphic similarity
of ‫( مبارك‬mubārak) and ‫( منازل‬munāzil) clearly produced this confusion and the
reading should, ­without doubt, be simply amended to ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil.
But the graphic similarity, coupled with an identical forename, created an endur-
ing and persistent blunder which caused even careful editors to err. ʿAbd Allāh
b. al-Mubārak was an illustrious zāhid, one of the early ascetics for whom all
biographers have nothing but praise.67 He was born in Marw al-Rūdh and died
in 181/797–798 during the reign of al-Rashīd, in Hīt, a town on the shores of the
Euphrates. Classical hagiographies, such as Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, portray him as a
saintly man who travelled widely in search of knowledge and became an exem-
plary authority in the fields of Ḥadīth, law and morality. Ṣūfī compilations give
account of many of his sayings, whose authenticity is above suspicion. What,
then, can be more natural for a text relating of holy men and mystics than to
include him whenever a likeness to his name crops up? Examples of cases in
which such confusion is more than likely abound. I shall confine myself to a few:
 Teachers and disciples   111
In al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb, in Bāb fī dhikr al-Malāmatiyya, two sayings which
should, undoubtedly, be attributed to Ibn Munāzil are assigned – as evidenced by
both the Berlin MS and Bārūd’s edition – to Ibn al-Mubārak who reportedly said:
“The essential feature of the malāmatī is not to show goodness and not to hide
wickedness”;68 and also: ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak was asked: Does the malāmatī
have any claim? He answered: “Does he own anything that he could have a claim
on?”69 The unmistaken malāmatī contents of these sayings make it clear that they
should be re-assigned to ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil rather than to Ibn al-Mubārak.70
Our knowledge of the early malāmatī school of Nīshāpūr derives from a cluster
of sources.71 Foremost among them is al-Sulamī’s works. In al-Sulamī’s Risālat
al-Malāmatiyya (ed. ʿAfifi, 1945),72 there are three references to either ʿAbd Allāh:
on page 90 the text reads: “ ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak, when asked about ‘blame’
(malāma) said …” In a footnote the editor, ʿAfifi, comments that there exists another
version, in which the reading is “ ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil said”. This version, he tells
us, is reported by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Farrāʾ. ʿAfifi comments that this is the
correct reading rather than Ibn al-Mubārak the Ṣūfī [!] who died in 181”; however,
he does not offer any reference to al-Farrāʾ ‘s version. In al-Fāwī’s 1985 edition,73
we do, indeed, read the following version: “I heard Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Farrāʾ
say: ‘When asked about blame, ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil said…’ ”.74
In ʿAfifi’s edition (101), we find another saying reported by Ibn al-Farrāʾ:
“I heard ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil, when asked if the malāmatī has any claims, say …
(hal yakūnu lil-malāmatī daʿwā)”. Here ʿAfifi informs us in a footnote that the
source has erroneously ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak. But ʿAfifi does not clarify why he
has chosen to amend the name in one place in his edited text and has left it
unchanged in the other. In al-Fāwī’s edition (152), this saying is altogether missing.75
Another example relates to the issue of kasb, earning a livelihood, or, more
precisely, to the merit of tasting the humiliation involved in earning one’s living.
In al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya (ed. Pedersen, 377), the following saying is
cited in the name of ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Munāzil: “There is no good in
one who does not taste the humiliation in earning a living (lā khayra fīman lā
yadhūqu dhulla ‘l-makāsib)”; in al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-lumaʿ, however, it is attrib-
uted to ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak.76 This saying, which al-Khargūshī, too, attrib-
utes to Ibn Munāzil,77 reflects the malāmatī attitude that encouraged adepts to
work for their livelihood rather than opt for tawakkul, a quietist reliance on
God,78 which, in practice, amounted to begging (masʾala). The attitude towards
kasb was one of the bones of contention between the Baghdādī and the
Nīshāpūrī schools. Thus, in the Tahdhīb al-asrār, al-Khargūshī has a chapter
titled “On Earning and the controversy in this matter between the people of ʿIrāq
and the people of Khurāsān” (bāb fī ‘l-kasb wa-dhikr al-ikhtilāf fīhi bayna ahl
al-ʿirāq wa-ahl Khurāsān).79 It opens with the following statement:

They disagreed concerning earning whether it should be favored or abandoned –

the people of Khurāsān favored it and the people of ʿIrāq were inclined to
abandon it (ikhtalafū fī tafḍīl al-kasb ʿalā tarkihi, fa-faḍḍalahu ahl
Khurāsān wa-istaḥabba ahl al-ʿIrāq tarkahu).80
112   Schools and teachers
Further on in this chapter, Ibn Munāzil is cited:

Know, that your earnings do not prevent you from ‘assigning’ [it to God]
while practicing ‘trust in God’ (iʿlam anna makāsibaka lā tamnaʿuka mina
‘l-tafwīḍ fī ‘l-tawakkul); that is, provided that in your earning you don’t lose
the following two things: intention and sincerity (idhā lam tuḍayyiʿ81
hādhayni -l-amrayni fī kasbika – al-niyya wal-ikhlāṣ).

In Kitāb al-lumaʿ, however, this is reported in the name of Ibn al-Mubārak.82 Here
Ibn Munāzil reflects the view, typical to the Malāmatī teaching and, in particular,
to the teaching of Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, his direct master; namely, that the adept
should maintain a normative appearance while keeping constant watch over his
inner states of being. In this vein, al-Sulamī states in Risālat al-Malāmatiyya: “The
[malāmatī teachers] encouraged their disciples to attend the marketplaces in their
bodies and to flee from them in their hearts (wa-aḥabbū [al-mashāyikh]
li-aṣḥābihim mulāzamata ‘l-aswāq bil-abdān w ­ al-firār minhā bil-qulūb).”83
In Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, al-Sulamī reports a dictum by Ḥamdūn, transmitted by
ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil: “When a man stops pursuing a livelihood, he becomes a
pestering beggar (quʿūd al-marʾ ʿan al-kasb ilḥāf fī ‘l-masʾala)”. In the Tahdhīb,
al-Khargūshī reports the same teaching thus: “ ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil reported in
the name of his master Abū Ṣāliḥ who said: Sitting [idle] like that, namely, refrain-
ing from livelihood, is to be a pester in begging (inna julūsanā hādhā, yaʿnī ʿan
­al-kasb, ilḥāf bil-masʾala)”.84 Abū Ṣāliḥ, as we know, is the kunya of Ḥamdūn
al-Qaṣṣār. Although the Nīshāpūrī literary tradition too suffered from careless
scribes (see [n. 53]), it visibly preserved the special association of Ibn Munāzil with
Ḥamdūn and his teaching. In Kitāb al-lumaʿ, whose author, Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, is
mainly concerned with the Baghdādī circles of Ṣūfīs, the confusion of Ibn Munāzil
with Ibn Mubārak is evident. I would propose that this confusion may have origi-
nated, perhaps unintentionally, with al-Sarrāj himself. In sum, Ibn Munāzil’s iden-
tity should clearly be distinguished from that of Ibn al-Mubārak. In tracing his
affiliation to the Nīshāpūrī teachers, we are not only rectifying a pervasive graphic
error, but also illuminating the special traits and relationships that defined the mys-
tical movement of Nīshāpūrī in the ninth–tenth centuries. Such clarification is the
platform from which to trace now the rapports and exchanges among the mystics of
Nīshāpūr and Baghdād. The ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ among Nīshāpūrīs and Baghdādīs
during the early fourth/tenth century, to which the sources bear witness, seems, at
first glance, to conflict with the local affiliations described above. Significantly,
however, this dynamic development also suggests the beginning of a new phase in
the history of early Islamic mysticism; a phase which heralds the subsequent
­creative work of compilers and chroniclers towards the end of that century.

Ibn Munāzil and al-Shiblī

The inquiry that I am attempting was sparked off by a rather long anecdote in the
Tahdhīb al-asrār. In it, Abū Bakr al-Shiblī, a renowned Ṣūfī of the Baghdādī
 Teachers and disciples   113
school, instructs Ibn Munāzil what the correct way to perform the pilgrimage is.
Having shown the Nīshāpūrī-malāmatī affiliation of Ibn Munāzil, especially to
Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār, I was somewhat thrown aback by an anecdote that portrays
Ibn Munāzil as a disciple of al-Shiblī, one of the main figures of the Baghdādī
school. Thus, the range of Ibn Munāzil’s affiliations became even more intrigu-
ing. Equally intriguing seemed the gist of al-Shiblī’s authoritative teaching con-
cerning the performance of the ḥajj. It seemed to me that the didactic meaning
of the story had to be sought in Ibn Munāzil’s malāmatī training, according to
which the mystical-introverted aspects of the ritualistic actions should be con-
cealed, vis-à-vis al-Shiblī’s insistence on the requirement that the performer
should be cognizant of the internal aspects of his religious acts. Here is a précis
of the pilgrimage story according to the Tahdhīb al-asrār:
Having made up his mind to go on a pilgrimage, Ibn Munāzil comes to
al-Shiblī to announce to him his decision. Al-Shiblī hands him two bags and
instructs him that upon arrival at Mecca he should fill them with sustenance
(raḥma)85 and bring them back with him [to Baghdād], so that all the companions
may have a share in it and may live by it for a while. Ibn Munāzil, the narrator,
fulfils the obligations of the ḥajj, the ʿumra, and the ziyāra and returns to al-Shiblī.
Al-Shiblī then questions him as to how he performed the various rituals of the
ḥajj. Ibn Munāzil recounts them one by one. Obviously, as far as the religious law
is concerned, he has fulfilled his duties to the letter. But following the account of
each of the rituals, al-Shiblī stops Ibn Munāzil and asks him whether he has
­performed them also on a deeper, contemplative level, and whether he has thus
attained through them mystical states and visions. Each time the question is raised,
Ibn Munāzil answers in the negative. He has simply performed his religious
duties, no more no less. In this case, declares al-Shiblī, you have not performed the
ḥajj at all. You should go back and repeat it all over again.
Here is my explanation: Ibn Munāzil had been trained by his Malāmatī teach-
ers to conceal the interior experiences within the external forms of the religious
practice. From the perspective of al-Shiblī, on the other hand, this anecdote
brings to light the Baghdādī path which taught the harmonization of the ritualis-
tic observances, for example of the ḥajj, with a careful contemplation of its inner
meanings and manifestations. In this vein, note the following saying by al-Shiblī
cited by al-Khargūshī in a different context:

There are three qiblas (i.e. the practice of facing the direction of the Kaʿba
when praying has three aspects): the qibla of the public (qiblat al-ʿāmma)
[is to] the Kaʿba; the qibla of the special ones (al-khāṣṣ) [is to] the Throne,
this is the qibla of the angels; and the qibla of the Knowers (al-ʿārifīn) [is
to] their hearts, for with the light of their hearts they observe their Lord.

This is the teaching that al-Shiblī wishes to pass on to Ibn al-Munāzil.86

Leaving aside the interesting didactic and thematic questions that this piece
raises, I have asked myself what to make of the association, which the text
makes obvious, between Ibn Munāzil and al-Shiblī. I could find no parallel to
114   Schools and teachers
this story in other compilations or in the biographical literature. No other work
of al-Sulamī or, for that matter, no other work that I could consult, mentions
such a meeting or refers to such a relationship. Had the information concerning
Ibn Munāzil’s association with al-Shiblī been based on firm ground, I venture to
argue, al-Sulamī would surely have mentioned it in the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya. In
the Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, Ibn Munāzil is not mentioned at all except in the erroneous
guise of Ibn al-Mubārak (see [nn 66–74] above). But, since al-Sarrāj is mainly
concerned with the Baghdādī circle of al-Junayd, the lack of evidence here only
strengthens the argument for Ibn Munāzil’s affiliation to the Nīshāpūrī circles.
Naturally, with today’s database facilities, a careful electronic search may yield
more results, but thus far they have not materialized. What I did come up with,
however, may point in several directions.

Nīshāpūrīs in Baghdād
Delving into the biographical and hagiographical literature brings up interesting
correlations. Thus, in Nafaḥāt al-uns, Jāmī (d. 898/1492) reports that al-Ḥusayn
b. Muḥammad b. Mūsā, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s father (died
c.340/951–952), was a disciple of both ʿAbd Allāh b. Munāzil and Abū ʿAlī
al-Thaqafī and that he also met al-Shiblī.87 These comments shed light on the
complex affiliations connecting and dividing the Nīshāpūrīs. It also alludes to
the possible connection of some of them with al-Shiblī. It seems that those who
became attached to al-Shiblī were mainly the followers of ʿAbd Allāh b.
Munāzil, namely, adherents of the path of Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār. If this is so, then it
also appears that Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, rather than following the path
of his father, chose to follow that of his maternal grandfather, Abū ʿAmr Ismāʿil
b. Nujayd, who was a close adherent of Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī and Abū Ḥafṣ
al-Ḥaddād’s path. Incidentally, al-Sulamī has even adopted his maternal grand-
father’s nisba rather than his father’s.88 May we surmise here a discipleship
divide within al-Sulamī’s own family?89 Should we not consider the possibility
that echoes of this segmentation reverberate, as subtext, through the seemingly
innocuous surface of pious anecdotes and sayings gathered in the classical
compilations?
Another case pointing in a similar direction is that of Abū Sahl Muḥammad
b. Sulaymān al-Ṣuʿlūkī (d. 369/979–980),90 an important Nīshāpūrī and a prom-
inent Shāfiʿī scholar.91 Samʿānī, as well as al-Khargūshī, name him imām
ʿaṣrihi.92 Samʿānī tells us that al-Ṣuʿlūkī studied fiqh with Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī
(on whose connection with Ibn Munāzil and with al-Shiblī, see “ ʿAbd Allāh b.
Munāzil and the Nīshāpūri ‘Path of Blame’ ” section above). Al-Khaṭīb
al-Baghdādī tells us that he was among al-Khargūshī’s teachers,93 and we have
seen that, in fact, it was he who gave al-Sulamī the ijāza to teach novices.94
Jāmī, in his Nafaḥāt al-uns, informs us that al-Ṣuʿlūkī followed al-Shiblī,
al-Murtaʿish and, again, Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī.95 Now it is curious that, in spite of
the great esteem with which Abū Sahl al-Ṣuʿlūkī was held, and in spite of
al-Sulamī’s own dues to him, al-Sulamī does not dedicate to him an entry in the
 Teachers and disciples   115
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya. He mentions him twice, however, in the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya,
in both cases as a direct informant. In the first instance, he is al-Sulamī’s source
for information concerning al-Shiblī (348), and in the second for information
concerning al-Murtaʿish (359). The latter is another intriguing name that seems
to play a role in the Nīshāpūrī–Baghdādī complex. Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh
b. Muḥammad al-Murtaʿish (d. 328/939–940) hailed from Nīshāpūr. He was, we
are told, a son of an Iranian landowner (dihqān)96 and used to live in the
Nīshāpūrī quarter of al-Ḥīra. He had studied with Abū Ḥafṣ and Abū ʿUthmān
but later, presumably after the death of the latter,97 he moved to Baghdād where
he became a follower of al-Junayd. Eventually he became one of the great
Baghdādī masters.98 May we consider al-Murtaʿish another link between Ibn
Munāzil and al-Shiblī? This is a conjecture. What is obvious, however, is that
when we link up the names of the Nīshāpūrīs who had left their hometown for
Baghdād, connections with al-Shiblī emerge: Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī, Abū Sahl
al-Ṣuʿlūkī, al-Murtaʿish, al-Khargūshī and al-Sulamī’s father had been followers
of Ḥamdūn and Ibn Munāzil in Nīshāpūr, and eventually moved to Baghdād
where they became associated with al-Shiblī. Historically, it is also obvious that,
as we approach the generation of al-Khargūshī and al-Sulamī, the geographic
and social horizons of Nīshāpūrī mysticism widen. Al-Junayd may already be
dead, but in Baghdād, al-Shiblī is still going strong.

Final note: the beginning of a new era

With al-Khargūshī and al-Sulamī, and somewhat later with al-Qushayrī,
Nīshāpūrī mysticism enters the arena of Ṣūfism: a new phase in the history of
Islamic mysticism begins. It is, perhaps, the conciliatory, homogenizing aura of
this new phase that transpires from the encounter between al-Shiblī and Ibn
Munāzil: It was good and well for Nīshāpūrīs of former malāmatī groups to
aspire to hide their mystical attainments from their fellowmen, as well as from
their own selves, behind the façade of normative, orthodox behaviour.99 The
time has come, however, for a new line of teaching and a new code of
behaviour, according to which the mystical attainments of the devotional life be
made seen by others as well as be made conscious by their bearers.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 30 (2005): 450–82. It is a follow up from previous studies: a chapter on the
Malāmatiyya in my doctoral dissertation on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, 1979 [in Hebrew]
and my article titled “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatī Movement in Early
Sufism”, in Classical Persian Sufism: from Its Origins to Rumī, ed. Leonard
Lewisohn (London: KNP, 1993) = The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn
(Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 583–613; also my review of von Schlegell’s Principles of
Ṣūfism (a translation of al-Qushayrī’s Risāla), Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
19 (1995): 272–81. The research was mainly done during a year I spent at the Insti-
tute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I wish to thank the
IAS whose generous accommodation during 2003 enhanced this work.
116   Schools and teachers
  2 On Abū Saʿd (or Saʿīd) ʿAbd al-Mālik ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Wāʿiẓ
al-Khargūshī, a Shāfiʿī scholar with mystical leanings, died in Nīshāpūr 406–7/1015–
1016, see Fuat Sezgin, GAS, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1967) 670–1 (no. 52); for a detailed
and well researched account of al-Khargūshī’s life, teaching and work, see Dawood
Sulaymān ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, A Critical Edition of Kitāb Sharaf al-Muṣṭafā by Abū Saʿd
ʿAbd al-Malik al-Kharkūshī (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1986), 2–29 and 95–107
(doctoral dissertation); also Uri Rubin, Muḥammad the Prophet in the Early Literature
of Ḥadīth (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1976), Vol. 2, 371ff. (doctoral dissertation).
To the primary sources mentioned in the above, add Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad
al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir wa-Dār Bayrūt,
1380/1960), 401; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ed. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, Vol. 2 (Leipzig:
F.A. Brockhaus, 1867), 325–6 (Kharkūsh); also Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Sarīfīnī
(d. 641/1243), Muntakhab min Kitāb al-siyāq li-Taʾrīkh Nīshāpūr (excerpts of a Persian
work based on al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī’s Taʾrīkh Naysābūr) – a facsimile edition pub-
lished by Richard Frye, The Histories of Nishapur (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1965), f. 94b. See also Chapter 4 in this monograph.
  3 Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften der königliche Biblio-
thek zu Berlin, Vol. 3, no. 2819 (Berlin, 1891), 6–7.
  4 See al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, Vol. 10, no. 5594 (Cairo: Maktabat
al-Khānjī, 1349/1931), 431; see also, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-ʿuns min
haḍarāt al-quds (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī Maḥmūdī, 1337 sh/1958), 311.
  5 See the introductions to the following editions: N. Shurayba, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya (Cairo:
Jamāʿat al-Azhar, 1953), 11–53; M.J. Kister, Ādāb al-ṣuḥba wa-ḥusn al-ʿishra
(Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society, 1954), 1–8 and in Arabic 3–16; Johannes Pedersen
(ed.), Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 19–38; Etan Kohlberg, Jawāmiʿ
ādāb al-ṣūfiyya and ʿuyūb al-nafs wa-mudāwātuhā (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic
Press, 1976), 7–18; S.I. Atesh, Tisʿa kutub fī uṣūl al-taṣawwuf wal-zuhd li-Abī ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (Beirut: al-Nāshir lil-ṭibāʿa wal-nashr, 1993), 51–140; Nasrallah
Pourjavady, Majmūʿa-ye āthār, Vol. 1 (Tehran, 1369/1990), 9–16 (in Persian).
  6 See Fritz Meier, “Ein wichtiger Handschriftenfund zur Sufik”, Oriens 20 (1967), 106;
Kohlberg, Jawāmiʿ ādāb, 7, nn 7 and 9; Paul Nwyia, Trois œuvres de mystiques
Musulmans: Šaqīq al-Balh̆ī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar el-Mashreq, 1986 [1973]),
25–32; Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The
Qurʾānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī (d. 283/896) (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1980), 110ff.; Gerhard Böwering, “Ṣūfī Hermeneutics in Medieval Islam”, Revue des
études islamiques, 55–7 (1987–1989), 256ff.; Gerhard Böwering, “Major Sources of
Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary”, Oriens 35 (1996), 35ff.; for Muslim scholars’
disapproval of al-Sulamī, however, see M.J. Kister (ed.), Ādāb al-ṣuḥba, 3–5 in the
English Introduction = 9–10 in the Arabic; also Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites de mys-
tiques Musulmans, 159–60, note 3.
  7 See, for example, Abū Naṣr Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd Allāh.
  8 Note, however, the above-mentioned doctoral dissertations devoted to al-Khargūshī’s
Sharaf al-muṣṭafā – see note 2.
  9 A.J. Arberry, “Khargūshī’s Manual of Ṣūfism”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 9 (1937–1939), 345–9.
10 See Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic
Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1997), 220: Appendix, reference to MS. Berlin, f. 180a; Louis Massignon, The
Passion of al-Ḥallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Vol. 4 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1982), 16 – al-Khargūshī appears as no. 180 in Massignon’s
Bibliography; he is described as malāmatī, theologian and Ashʿarite; see also 1: 39 –
al-Khargūshī is mentioned there as a “pro-Ḥallājian Shafiʿite” (based on what?), 93
and 609 (citation of a saying by al-Ḥallāj as to ‘What is Sufism’); 2: 4, 107, 118, 462;
3: 107, 115, 177, 181, 227, 253, 256, 277, 337 and 348.
 Teachers and disciples   117
11 Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai sur le lexique
­technique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970), 27, 34, 158, 163
and 164.
12 See Nasrollah Pourjavady, “Manbaʿī kuhan dar bāb-i Malāmatiyyān-i Nīshāpūr,”
Maʿārif 15(1–2) (1998), 3–50 (I thank Julia Rubanovich for reading with me
­Pourjavady’s paper).
13 I have consulted Nicholson (see note 16); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North California Press, 1975); Alexander
D. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000) – note the
detailed discussion in Chapter 6 on “The Systematization of the Ṣūfī Tradition”,
116–49 (esp. Table 3, 149); Jawid A Mojaddedi, The Biographical Tradition in
Sufism: The Ṭabaqāt Genre From al-Sulamī to Jāmī (Richmond: Curzon Press,
2001); William Chittick, Sufism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000);
Bernd Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien”, Zeitschrift
Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 136(3) (1986), 536–69; ʻAbd
al-Karīm al-Qushayrī, Das Sendschreiben al-Qušayrīs über das Sufitum, ed. and
trans. Richard Gramlich (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1989); Kāmil
Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī, al-Ṣila bayna al-taṣawwuf wal-tashayyuʿ, 3rd edn (Beirut: Dar al-
Andalus, 1982). Fritz Meier, whose seminal article on “Khurāsān and the End of
Classical Sufism”, English trans. in Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism (Leiden:
Brill, 1999), 189–219 (originally in German, in Atti del convegno internazionale sul
tema La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 1971),
545–70, is, perhaps, the first attempt to outline a systematic approach to the historical
study of early Sufism, even he does not refer to al-Khargūshī (or, for that matter, in
any of the articles and essays brought together in Essays on Islamic Piety and
Mysticism).
14 Arberry refers to Brockelmann (Supp. 361) “with the authorities there quoted”.
15 Arberry, “Khargūshī’s Manual of Ṣūfism”, 345.
16 See R.A Nicholson’s Introduction to his edition of al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-lumaʿ (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1914), i–ii.
17 For a fuller, more updated list of Massignon’s works in which he refers to the
Tahdhīb al-asrār, see n. 10 above.
18 Arberry, “Khargūshī’s Manual of Ṣūfism”, 346. It goes without saying that if we were
to appropriate such scholarly verdicts, the works of most Ṣūfī authors would be
denounced as weak and unreliable – cf., for example, the opposition to al-Sulamī
recorded by Tāj al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʻīyah
al-Kubrā, Vol. 3 (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1964), 60.
19 Arberry, “Khargūshī’s Manual of Ṣūfism”, 347–8.
20 E.P. Goldschmidt, Mediaeval Texts and Their First Appearance in Print (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1943), 88.
21 Arberry, “Khargūshī’s Manual of Ṣūfism”, 349.
22 That Arberry may have been intent on pointing out ‘plagiarisms’ in Ṣūfī works
appears also in A.J. Arberry, “Did Sulamī Plagiarize Sarrāj?” Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society 3 (1937): 461–5.
23 See also Chapter 4 in this monograph.
24 See Sara Sviri, “Review of al-Qushayrī, Principles of Sufism, trans. B.R. Von
Schlegell”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 19 (1995), 274; cf. Jawid
A. Mojaddedi, “Getting drunk with Abū Yazīd or staying sober with Junayd: the cre-
ation of a popular typology of Sufism”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, 66(1) (2003): 1–13.
25 ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Kharkūshī, Kitāb Tahdhīb al-Asrār, ed. Bassām
Muḥammad Barūd (Abū Dhabī: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1999), 327.
26 For al-Shiblī and Ibn Munāzil, see below, “Ibn Munāzil and al-Shiblī” section.
 118   Schools and teachers
27 See Chapter 4 in this monograph.
28 See Paul Kraus, Jābir b. Ḥayyān: Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques
dans l’Islam, Vols 1 and 2 (see indices) (Cairo, 1942–1943); also, Paul Nwyia, “Le
Tafsīr mystique attribué à Jaʿfar Ṣādiq”, Mélanges de l’Université Saint Joseph 43
(1967), 181–230; J.B. Taylor, “Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, spiritual forebear of the Ṣūfis”,
Islamic Culture 40 (1966), 97–113.
29 See Böwering, “Ṣūfī Hermeneutics in Medieval Islam”, 255–70; see also Böwering,
“Major Sources of Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary”, Oriens 35 (1996), 35–56.
30 See Massignon, Essay, 138ff.; Massignon, “Die Ursprünge und die Bedeutung des
Gnostizismus im Islam”, in Opera Minora, Vol. 1 (Paris: Presses universitaires de
France, 1969), 499–513; Henry Corbin, “Shīʿisme et soufisme”, in En Islam iranien:
aspects spirituels et philosophiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1971–1972); Nwyia, “Le
Tafsīr mystique attribué à Jaʿfar Ṣādiq”; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mys-
tique (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970); Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis: Die
extreme Schia und die ʿAlawiten (Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1982); Böwering, “Major
Sources of Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary”, 51ff. et passim; Frederick
S. Colby, “The Subtleties of the Ascension: al-Sulamī on the Miʿrāj of the Prophet
Muḥammad”, Studia Islamica 94 (2002), 167–83. Note also the inclusion of Shīʿī
Imāms in some early Ṣūfī silsilas (lines of transmission) – see J. Spencer Trimingham,
The Sufi Orders in Islam (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 262; also Kamil
Mustafa al-Shaybi, al-Ṣila bayn al-tashayyuʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Masīrah, 1982), 467–71
(incorporating the nineteenth-century Shīʿī scholar al-Ḥāj Maʿṣūm ʿAlī’s Ṭarāʾiq
al-ḥaqāʾiq – see online https://dorar.net/firq/2308). For several of the above references,
I am indebted to Prof. Amir-Moezzi.
31 See note 32.
32 See Frye, The Histories; also R.W. Bulliet’s ethnographic study based on Frye’s facsimi-
les, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); see also Elton Daniel, The Political and Social
History of Khurāsān under the ʿAbbasids, 747–820 (Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca
Islamica, 1979); for the influx of Shīʿīs into Khurāsān following Zaydī risings, see
Andrew J. Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shi’ism: Hadith as Discourse
Between Qum and Baghdad (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 36; for a certain Abū Naṣr
Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd Allāh (mentioned by both al-Sulamī and al-Khargūshī) who, possibly
in Nīshāpūr, may have been a transmitter of Shīʿī teachings, in particular those of Jaʿfar
al-Ṣādiq, see Böwering, “Major Sources of Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary”, 47f.
and 50–1; also, Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrn̄ī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa, Vol. 1 (Beirut
1390/1971), 321 (Böwering 47, n. 71).
33 The first facsimile in Frye, The Histories, which is titled Kitāb Aḥvāl-i Nishāpūr, is
identical with the text published by Bahman Karimi-Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad
al-Khalīfah al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr: Taʾlīf-i al-Ḥākim ʻabū ʻAbd Allāh
Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh al-Nayshābūrī (Tehran: Kitābkhānih-i Ibn Sīnā, 1339) –
on it see Frye, “Introduction/The Texts”, 10–13.
34 See Frye f. 12a = Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr, 26.
35 See Ibn Qūlawayhi al-Qummī (d. 368), Kāmil al-ziyārāt (Qumm: Nashr al-Faqāha,
n.d.),
‫ﻣﻮﺍﻁﻦ‬al-bāb
‫ﻓﻲ ﺛﻼﺙ‬ 101, 506:
‫ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ ﻣﻦ ﺯﺍﺭ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺑﻌﺪ ﺩﺍﺭﻱ ﻭﺷﻄﻮﻥ ﻣﺰﺍﺭﻱ ﺃﺗﻴﺘﻪ ﻳﻮﻡ‬:‫ﻗﺎﻝ ﺃﺑﻮ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻦ ﺍﻟﺮﺿﺎ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﺴﻼﻡ‬
...‫ ﻓﺄﻧﺎ ﻭﺁﺑﺎﺋﻲ ﺷﻔﻌﺎﺅﻩ ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ‬،‫ﺷﻄﻮﻥ ﻣﺰﺍﺭﻱ ﺃﺗﻴﺘﻪ ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ ﻓﻲ ﺛﻼﺙ ﻣﻮﺍﻁﻦ ;ﺃﻻ ﻓﻤﻦ ﺯﺍﺭﻧﻲ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻳﻌﺮﻑ ﻣﺎ ﺃﻭﺟﺐ ﷲ ﺕ ﻣﻦ ﺣﻘﻲ‬
cf. al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarsī, Iʿlām al-warā bi-aʿlām al-hudā
(Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāh, 1985), 371: "… ‫ "ﻓﻤﻦ ﺯﺍﺭﻧﻲ ﻓﻲ ﻏﺮﺑﺘﻲ ﺑﻄﻮﺱ‬: ‫ﺮﺿﺎ ﻉ ﺱ‬
‫ "ﻓﻤﻦ ﺯﺍﺭﻧﻲ ﻓﻲ ﻏﺮﺑﺘﻲ ﺑﻄﻮﺱ‬: ‫ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﻌﻲ ﻓﻲ ﺩﺭﺟﺘﻲ ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ ﻣﻐﻔﻮﺭﺍ ﻟﻪ" ﻗﺎﻝ ﺍﻟﺮﺿﺎ ﻉ ﺱ‬also 374: ‫ ﻓﺎﻧﺎ ﻭﺁﺑﺎﺋﻲ ﺷﻔﻌﺎﺅﻩ ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ‬،‫ﷲ ﺕ ﻣﻦ ﺣﻘﻲ‬
‫ ﻓﺎﻧﺎ ﻭﺁﺑﺎﺋﻲ ﺷﻔﻌﺎﺅﻩ ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻣﺔ‬،‫"…ﺃﻻ ﻓﻤﻦ ﺯﺍﺭﻧﻲ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻳﻌﺮﻑ ﻣﺎ ﺍﻭﺟﺐ ﷲ ﺕ ﻣﻦ ﺣﻘﻲ‬
36 His mother was a Nubian slave-girl – see Ibn al-Funduq ʿAlī b. Zayd al-Bayhaqī,
Lubāb al-ansāb wa-al-alqāb wa-al-aaqāb, Vol. 1 (Qumm: Maktabat Āyat Allāh
al-ʻUẓmā al-Marʻashī al-Najafī, 1410/1989), 394; for the custom of the Shīʿī sādāt, in
 Teachers and disciples   119
contrast to the Caliphs, to marry black slave-girls as a sign of modesty and humility,
see al-Khuwārizmī, Rasāʾil Abī Bakr al-Khwārizmī (Bambʾī, 1301/1883); for
­interesting material concerning ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s ascetical leanings and links with early
ascetics, see al-Shaybi, al-Ṣila, 236ff.
37 MS. Berlin f. 107b–108a = Barūd’s ed. 219; cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Kitāb
­al-futuwwa, ed. Süleyman Ateş (Ankara, 1397/1977). Reprinted in ed. Nasrollah
Pourjavady, 2 vols (Tehran: Iran University Press, 1369 sh/1990), 58:
:‫ ﻣﺎ ﺍﻟﻔﺘﻮﺓ؟ ﻓﻘﺎﻝ‬:‫ ﺳﺌﻞ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺑﻦ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ >ﺍﻟﺼﺎﺩﻕ< ﺭﺿﻲ ﷲ ﻋﻨﻪ‬:‫ﻋﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﻣﻮﺳﻰ ﺍﻟﺮﺿﺎ ﺭﺿﻲ ﷲ ﻋﻨﻪ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬
‫ – ﺍﻟﻔﺘﻮﺓ ﻁﻌﺎﻡ ﻣﺼﻨﻮﻉ ﻭﻧﺎﺋﻞ ﻣﺒﺬﻭﻝ ﻭﺑﺸﺮ ﻣﻘﺒﻮﻝ ﻭﻋﻔﺎﻑ ﻣﻌﺮﻭﻑ ﻭﺃﺫﻯ ﻣﻜﻔﻮﻑ‬interestingly, this tradi-
tion concerning the nature of futuwwa (= chivalry, see [n. 45]), is reported to
al-Sulamī by Manṣūr b. ʿAbd Allāh, on whom, see notes 7, 32.
38 Text: al-Ḥusayn.
39
‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ‬ See‫ﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬
Frye,‫ﺍﺑﻲ‬f.‫ﺍﻻﻣﺎﻡ‬
68a = Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī,
‫ﻣﻘﺪﺳﻪ ﺳﻴﺪ ﺷﻬﻴﺪ‬ ‫ﺍﺳﺖ ﺭﻭﺿﻪ‬Tārīkh-i
‫ﻭﺩﺭﻳﻦ ﺣﻈﻴﺮﻩ‬ ‫ﺁﺳﻮﺩﻫﺎﻧﺪ‬145:
Nayshābūr, ‫ﺣﻈﻴﺮﻩ ﻛﻪ ﻣﻨﺴﻮﺏ ﺍﺳﺖ ﺑﺎﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ‬
‫ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻴﻦ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ‬ ‫ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍﻻﻣﺎﻡﺍﺑﻲ‬
‫ﺍﺑﻲ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬ ‫ﺷﻬﻴﺪﺍﻻﻣﺎﻡ‬
‫ﻣﻘﺪﺳﻪﺳﻴﺪﺳﻴﺪﺷﻬﻴﺪ‬
‫ﻣﻘﺪﺳﻪ‬ ‫ﺭﻭﺿﻪ‬
‫ﺭﻭﺿﻪ‬ ‫ﺍﺳﺖﺍﺳﺖ‬
‫ﺣﻈﻴﺮﻩ‬‫ﺣﻈﻴﺮﻩ‬
‫ﻭﺩﺭﻳﻦﻭﺩﺭﻳﻦ‬ ‫ﺁﺳﻮﺩﻫﺎﻧﺪ‬
‫ﺁﺳﻮﺩﻫﺎﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﺍﺳﺖﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ‬
‫ﺑﺎﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻫﻞ‬ ‫ﻛﻪ ﺍﺳﺖ‬
‫ﻣﻨﺴﻮﺏ‬ ‫ﻣﻨﺴﻮﺏ‬
‫ﻩ ﻛﻪﺣﻈﻴﺮﻩ‬
‫ﺑﻦ  ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻴﻦ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻣﻴﺮ ﺍﻟﻤﺆﻣﻨﻴﻦ ﻭﻳﻌﺴﻮﺏ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻴﻦ ﻛﺮﻡ ﷲ ﻭﺟﻬﻬﻢ ﻭﻗﺒﺮ ﺳﻴﺪ   ﺑﺰﺭﻛﻮﺍﺭﺍ ﺍﻣﺎﻡ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺑﻦ ﺯﺑﺎﺭ‬ ‫اجمعين‬
‫عليهمﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬ ‫ﻭﻫﻮ هللا‬
‫ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ‬
‫ﺑﺰﺭﻛﻮﺍﺭﺍ ﺍﻣﺎﻡ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺑﻦ ﺯﺑﺎﺭﻩ ﻭﺩﻭ ﭘﺴﺮ ﻭﺍﺣﻔﺎﺩ ﺍﻳﺸﺎﻥ ﺭﺿﻮﺍﻥ ﷲ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺍﺟﻤﻌﻴ‬ ; cf. Lubāb al-ansāb, where Ibn al-Funduq
ʿAlī b. Zayd al-Bayhaqī helps us identify him as one of the descendants of the Āl
Zubāra (on whom, see below): he was imprisoned by Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir, the ruler
of Khurāsān and died in prison shortly before the fall of the Ṭāhirid – see 2:510;
al-Bayhaqī also mentions a certain Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-
ashraf whose laqab was al-ṣūfī and who was buried in Nīshāpūr – see 2:458 and also
1: 421–2; for other Shīʿīs who were nicknamed al-ṣūfī, see ibid., 1: 270, 275–7; also
425:… ‫ ﻗﺘﻞ ﺑﻨﻴﺴﺎﺑﻮﺭ ﻭﻣﺪﻓﻮﻥ ﻓﻲ ﻣﻘﺒﺮﺓ ﺍﻟﺤﻴﺮﺓ‬،‫ ; ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﺍﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﺤﺴﻦ ﺍﻟﺸﺠﺮﻱ‬note the
intriguing comment made by Newman, The Formative Period, 9: he argues that most
of those who adhered to the Jārūdiyya and Zaydiyya groups were wool manufacturers
(see also 11, nn 15 and 16, where he cites al-Ṭabarī, al-Yaʿqūbī and al-Masʿūdī) –
could this stand behind the laqab al-ṣūfī?
40 See Tahdhīb, ed. Barūd, 27.
41 On the Jārūdiyya, see al-Masʿūdi, Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Maʿādin al-Jawāhir, ed.
Charles Pellat, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Paris, Société asiatique, 1965), 45 §2225. The
Jārūdiyya was the only branch of the Zaydiyya who considered ʿAlī the rightful suc-
cessor of the Prophet Muḥammad – see Heinz Halm, Shiism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1991), 206.
42 See al-Shaybi, al-Ṣila, 189; cf., however, Newman, The Formative Period, 36, where a
certain Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Ḥasan, a Zaydī, rose in Rayy in 252/866–867
against the Ṭahīrids; see also al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, Kitāb al-Irshād: The Book of Guid-
ance Into the Lives of the Twelve Imams, trans. I.K.A. Howard (Horsham: Balagha
Books and London: Muhammadi Trust, 1981), 432–4. It seems that this Abū Jaʿfar
Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar (nicknamed Karkān?) was the son of Jaʿfar ibn al-Ḥasan al-Nāṣir,
and that this Jaʿfar’s laqab was al-Dībāja – see al-Bayhaqī, Lubāb al-ansāb, 66.
43 ‫ﻳﺤﻴﻰ‬
‫ﺑﻦ‬ See‫ﺑﻦ‬al-Shaybi,
‫ﺑﺎﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻛﻤﺤﻤﺪ‬ al-Ṣila, 189:
‫ﻣﻦ ﻳﻠﻘﺐ‬ ‫ ﺑﻞ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ‬،‫ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻻﺋﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﺪﻳﻮﻥ – ﻛﺰﻳﺪ – ﻣﺠﻤﻮﻋﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺰﻫﺎﺩ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﻘﺸﻔﻴﻦ‬
،(408 ،‫ ﺑﻞ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻣﻦ ﻳﻠﻘﺐ ﺑﺎﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻛﻤﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﻳﺤﻴﻰ ﺑﻦ ﻋﺒﺪﷲ ﺑﻦ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﺑﻲ ﻁﺎﻟﺐ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻗﺘﻠﻪ ﺍﻟﺮﺷﻴﺪ ﻣﺤﺒﻮﺳﺎ )ﻣﻘﺎﺗﻞ ﺍﻟﻄﺎﻟﺒﻴﻴﻦ‬،‫ﻟﺰﻫﺎﺩ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﻘﺸﻔﻴﻦ‬
‫< ﺑﻤﺎﺋﺘﻲ ﺭﺟﻞ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺠﺎﺭﻭﺩﻳ‬200 ‫ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻼﺓ ﺑﻤﻜﺔ >ﻓﻲ ﺳﻨﺔ‬،‫ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﻘﺐ ﺑﺎﻟﺪﻳﺒﺎﺝ‬،‫ ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺍﻟﺼﺎﺩﻕ‬،(408 ،‫ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻗﺘﻠﻪ ﺍﻟﺮﺷﻴﺪ ﻣﺤﺒﻮﺳﺎ )ﻣﻘﺎﺗﻞ ﺍﻟﻄﺎﻟﺒﻴﻴﻦ‬
‫ ﺷﻔﺎء ﺍﻟﻐﺮﺍﻡ ﺑﺎﺧﺒﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ ﺍﻟﺤﺮﺍ‬،‫ ﺍﻟﻔﺎﺳﻲ‬،‫ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺁﺧﺮﻩ‬540 ،‫< ﺑﻤﺎﺋﺘﻲ ﺭﺟﻞ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺠﺎﺭﻭﺩﻳﺔ ﻭﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺛﻴﺎﺏ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﻭﺳﻴﻤﺎء ﺍﻟﺨﻴﺮ ﻅﺎﻫﺮ )ﻧﻔﺲ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﺪﺭ‬200 ‫ﻼﺓ ﺑﻤﻜﺔ >ﻓﻲ ﺳﻨﺔ‬
‫ ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﺛﺎﺋﺮ ﺯﻳﺪﻱ ﺁﺧﺮ ﻳﻮﺻﻒ ﺑﺎﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺳﻢ … ﻻﻧﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﺪﻣﻦ ﻟﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺜﻴﺎﺏ ﻣﻦ‬.(2:189 ،1859 ،‫ ﺷﻔﺎء ﺍﻟﻐﺮﺍﻡ ﺑﺎﺧﺒﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ ﺍﻟﺤﺮﺍﻡ‬،‫ ﺍﻟﻔﺎﺳﻲ‬،‫ﻟﻰ ﺁﺧﺮﻩ‬
(2:410 ،‫ﺎﻥ ﺛﺎﺋﺮ ﺯﻳﺪﻱ ﺁﺧﺮ ﻳﻮﺻﻒ ﺑﺎﻟﺼﻮﻓﻲ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺳﻢ … ﻻﻧﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﺪﻣﻦ ﻟﺒﺲ ﺍﻟﺜﻴﺎﺏ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﻑ ﺍﻻﺑﻴﺾ )ﻣﺮﻭﺝ ﺍﻟﺬﻫﺐ‬
44 Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr, 151.
45 The Persian term jawānmard, [chivalrous] youth, equals the Arabic fatā and relates to
the ethical virtues of jawānmardī or futuwwa; for the complex notion of futuwwa, see
Louis Massignon, “La ‘Futuwwa’ ou ‘Pacte d’honneur artisanal entre les travailleurs
Musulmans au Moyen Age”, in Opera Minora: Textes Recueillis, Classés Et
­Présentés Avec Une Bibliographie, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-Maaref, 1963), 396–421;
 120   Schools and teachers
Henry Corbin, “La chevalerie spirituelle”, in En Islam iranien: Aspects Spirtuels
et philosophiques, Vol. 4 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971–1972), 390ff.; Muḥammad Jaʿfar
Mahjub, “Chivalry and Early Persian Sufism”, in Classical Persian Sufism from its
Origins to Rumi, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London: KNP, 1993), 549–81; also
­al-Shaybi, al-Ṣila, 515–53. All these studies highlight the association of the Shīʿī
­tradition with the ideal of futuwwa. See also Chapter 4 in this monograph.
46 On him, see al-Bayhaqī, Lubāb al-ansāb, Vol. 1, 414.
47 This should be amended to ‫ زبارة‬as, according to Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Zayd
al-Bayhaqī’s Lubāb al-ansāb, ‫آل زبارة‬, originally Zaydīs from Medina, were the chief-
tains (‫)نقباء‬
‫ﺳﺒﻌﻤﺎﺋﺔ‬ of ‫ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻠﻤﺎء‬
‫ﺍﻻﺗﻘﻴﺎء‬ Nīshāpūr – see
‫ﺍﻟﺼﻠﺤﺎء‬ Vol. ‫ﻣﻦ‬
‫ﺍﻟﺴﺎﺩﺍﺕ‬ 2, ‫ﻧﻴﺸﺎﺑﻮﺭ‬
492ff. ‫ﻣﻦ‬
– note especially
‫ﺣﻤﻞ ﻣﻌﻪ‬ 497:
،‫ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻳﺤﻴﻰ‬ ‫… ﻟﻤﺎ ﺣﺞ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪ ﺍﻻﺟﻞ ﺍﺑﻮ‬
‫ ; … ﺍﻋﻘﺎ‬see also ibid., 1:262 note 4: .‫ ﺣﻤﻞ ﻣﻌﻪ ﻣﻦ ﻧﻴﺸﺎﺑﻮﺭ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺴﺎﺩﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﺼﻠﺤﺎء ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻠﻤﺎء ﺍﻻﺗﻘﻴﺎء ﺳﺒﻌﻤﺎﺋﺔ ﺭﺟﻞ‬،‫ﻟﻤﺎ ﺣﺞ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪ ﺍﻻﺟﻞ ﺍﺑﻮ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻳﺤﻴﻰ‬
‫ ; … ﺍﻋﻘﺎﺏ ﺁﻝ ﺯﺑﺎﺭﺓ ﻭﻫﻢ ﺑﻴﺖ ﺑﻨﻴﺴﺎﺑﻮﺭ ﻣﺸﻬﻮﺭﻭﻥ ﺑﺎﻟﻔﻀﻞ ﻭﺍﻟﺴﺨﺎء ﻳﻘﺎﻝ ﻟﻬﻢ ﺑﻨﻮ ﺯﺑﺎﺭﺓ‬see also ibid., ;1:262 for note 4: .‫ﺭﺟﻞ‬
the impressive quantity of distinguished Shīʿīs in Nīshāpūr, see al-Bayhaqī’s
Lubāb al-ansāb, 498: ;see also al-Bayhaqī’s Lubāb al-ansāb, Vol. 1, 262, n. 4:
‫ نسب الشريف نقيب النقباء بنيشابور‬see also the section titled “ .526 ‫ﻧﺴﺐ ﺍﻟﺸﺮﻳﻒ ﻧﻘﻴﺐ ﺍﻟﻨﻘﺒﺎء ﺑﻨﻴﺸﺎﺑﻮﺭ‬
48 ‫– ﺍﻳﻦ ﺩﻭ ﺷﺮﻳﻒ ﺑﺰﺭﻙ ﻭﺍﻭﻻﺩ ﻭﺍﺣﻔﺎﺩ ﺍﻳﺸﺎﻥ ﺭﺿﻲ ﷲ ﻋﻨﻬﻢ ﺩﺭ ﻣﻘﺒﺮﻩ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﻁﺎﻫﺮ ﺍﻧﺪﻭ ﺁﻧﺮﺍﻛﻮﺭﺳﺘﺎﻥ ﺳﺎﺩﺍﺕ ﻛﻔﺘﻨﺪﻯ‬
see Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr, 149 [= f. 70].
49 Note that al-Bayhaqī in Lubāb al-ansāb quotes profusely from al-Ḥākim
al-Naysābūri, for example, in the section devoted to the Āl Zubāra – see also 2:492ff.,
where (on 492) he also quotes Abū Saʿd al-Kharkūshī.
50 See al-Shaybi, al-Ṣila, 521ff., and esp. 525–7; also al-Sulamī, Kitāb al-Futuwwa,
8–10.
51 See Sviri, “Review of al-Qushayrī”, 273–5 – see also [n. 56].
52 Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: Brill,
1960), 376; see also Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-I Nayshābūr, 66–7 = Frye, f. 31a–
32b; Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, ed. R.A. Nicholson, Vol. 2 (London:
Luzac & Co. and E.J. Brill, 1907), 107–9.
53 On al-Sulamī’s father association with Ibn Munāzil, see [nn. 87–8].
54 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 370; the year of death is corroborated in Karimi,
al-Naysābūri, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr, 70 – the information concerning Abū ʿAlī
al-Thaqafī was, apparently, submitted to al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūri directly by Abū
ʿAlī’s grandson, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Thaqafī. According to him, Abū
ʿAlī was born in Qūhistan in the year 244 and died in Nīshāpūr in 328, where he
was buried in the Qizz cemetery. Al-Ḥākim mentions him as ‫ﺍﻻﻣﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﻤﻘﺘﺪﻯ ﺑﻪ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻔﻘﻪ‬
.‫ﻭﺍﻟﻜﻼﻡ ﻭﺍﻟﻮﻋﻆ ﻭﺍﻟﻮﺭﻉ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻘﻞ ﻭﺍﻟﺪﻳﻦ‬. Further in the Talkhīṣ, Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī
al-Nīshāpūrī is mentioned among the ‫ ﻣﺸﺎﻳﺦ‬,‫ ﻁﺒﻘﺎﺕ‬who were buried in Nīshāpūr: Abū
Ḥafṣ Ḥaddād, Abū ‘Uthmān Ḥīrī, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār and others – see 149–50.
55 The verb laqiya implies, probably, that he was their contemporary and met them but
was not considered their disciple; in the latter case, the verb used would be ṣaḥiba –
cf., however, al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla (Cairo, n.d.) 26, where the verb ṣaḥiba is used.
56 See also Chapter 4 in this monograph.
57 Cf. al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla where Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī is introduced as the one
through whom Ṣūfism appeared in Nīshāpūr: ‫ﻭﺑﻪ ﻅﻬﺮ ﺍﻟﺘﺼﻮﻑ ﺑﻨﻴﺴﺎﺑﻮﺭ‬. For interesting
observations concerning the Nīshāpūrī teachers, see Meier, “Khurāsān”, 189–219.
58 For the problematic notion of ‘actions’ and ‘abandoning actions’ (tark al-aʿmāl), see
Sviri, “Review of al-Qushayrī”, 278f.
59 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ‫ﺍﻟﻴﻪ ﺑﺮﻛﺎﺕ ﻛﻼﻡ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻮﺍﺟﺐ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﺑﻲ ﺍﻟﺜﻘﻔﻲ ﺍﻥ ﻳﺘﻜﻠﻢ ﻟﻨﻔﺴﻪ ﻻ ﻟﻠﺨﻠﻖ ﻟﺬﻟﻚ ﻟﻴﺲ ﻳﺼﻞ‬
378:
‫ﻟﻴﺲ; ﻳﺼﻞ ﺍﻟﻴﻪ ﺑﺮﻛﺎﺕ ﻛﻼﻡ‬ cf.‫ﻟﺬﻟﻚ‬
al-Qushayrī,
‫ﻟﻨﻔﺴﻪ ﻻ ﻟﻠﺨﻠﻖ‬al-Risāla, 97 ‫ﺍﺑﻲ‬
‫ﺍﻟﺜﻘﻔﻲ ﺍﻥ ﻳﺘﻜﻠﻢ‬ (Bāb
‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬al-ṣidq), where an illuminating
‫ﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻮﺍﺟﺐ‬
anecdote concerning a ‘confrontation’ between al-Thaqafī and Ibn Munāzil is related
to al-Qushayrī by his own teacher Abū ʿAlī al-Daqqāq.
60 See Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Risālat al-Malāmatiyya, ed. Abu ’l-ʿAlāʾ
ʿAfīfī in al-Malāmatiyya wa ’l-ṣūfiyya wa-ahl al-futuwwa (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub
al-ʿarabiyya, 1945), 112: ...‫ﻭﻣﻦ ﺃﺻﻮﻟﻬﻢ ﺗﺮﻙ ﺍﻟﻜﻼﻡ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻌﻠﻢ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﻫﺎﺓ ﺑﻪ‬
 Teachers and disciples   121
61 ‫ﺍﻥ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺃﻣﺮ ﺍﺑﻲ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺳﻢ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻭﺻﻔﺘﻤﻮﻩ ﻓﻤﺎ ﻣﺜﻞ ﻣﺎ ﺗﺴﻤﻌﻮﻥ ﻣﻨﻪ؟ ﺇﻻ ﻣﺜﻞ ﺍﻟﻄﻌﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﻄﻴﺐ ﻳﺘﻨﺎﻭﻟﻪ ﺍﻟﺮﺟﻞ ﺛﻢ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ‬
‫ ﻭﻛﺬﻟﻚ ﻋﻠﻢ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺮﻓﺔ ﺍﻧﻤﺎ ﻳﻠﻘﻲ ﺍﻟﺤﻖ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﻦ ﺷﺎء ﻣﻦ ﺧﻠﻘﻪ ﻟﻪ ﻁﻴﺒﻪ ﺛﻢ ﻻ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ ﺑﻠﺴﺎﻧﻪ ﻭﻻ ﻳﻨﻄﻘﻪ‬،‫ﻓﻀﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺎ ﺗﺮﻭﻥ‬
.‫ﺍﻟﺤﻖ ﺇﻻ ﺑﺈﺭﺍﺩﺗﻪ‬
62 Frye, f. 32 = Karimi, al-Nīsābūrī, Tārīkh-i Nayshābūr, 67.
63 Al-Qushayrī describes Ibn Munāzil as the Sheikh of the Malāmatiyya, see al-Risāla, 26.
64 On the quarter of al-Ḥīra in Nīshāpūr, see Chapter 4 in this monograph note 9 and the
sources mentioned; also C.E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghani-
stan and Eastern Iran, 994–1040 (Edinburgh: University Press, 1963), 166.
65 ‫"ﻧﻘﻞ ﺍﺯ ﺧﻂ ﺧﻮﺍﺟﻪ ﻗﻄﺐ ﺍﻟﺪﻳﻦ ﺭﺣﻤﻪ ﷲ‬
66 The eponym of the Ṭāhirid dynasty.
67 The list of authorities writing on him is long – for references, see Sezgin, GAS, 95
and many more references in the index.
68 Barūd’s edition, 39 = MS. Berlin f. 12a.
69 Barūd’s edition, 40 = MS. Berlin f. 12b.
70 Note that Pourjavady is more cautious and regards the second-century Ibn al-Mubārak
as an early malāmatī – see Pourjavady, “Manbaʿi kuhan”, 12; he also argues for the
possibility that, even if Ibn al-Mubārak of the ‘malāmatī’ texts is not identical with the
second/eighth-century ascetic, there may still have existed in Nīshāpūr, in the circle of
Ḥamdūn, another person bearing the same name. Pourjavady brings to bear Khayr
al-Dīn al-Zirikli, al-Aʻlām: qāmūs tarājim li-ashhar al-rijāl wa-al-nisāʼ min al-ʻArab
wa-al-mustaʻribīn wa-al-mustashriqīn, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār al-ʻIlm lil-Malāyīn, 1979),
115 (based on Ibn al-Jawzī’s al-Mudhish), to show that there existed six men named
ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak: one from Marw al-Rūdh, one from Khurāsān, one from
Bukhara, one from Jawhar and the rest from Baghdād – see Pourjavady, “Manbaʿi
kuhan”, 38–9. I opt for the simpler solution of assuming an enduring graphic mix-up
between the two names, a solution that is, at the same time, the lectio difficilior of the
two names. I also believe that the examples I assembled, and the many more that could
be adduced, where the same saying is attributed at times to Ibn Munāzil and at times to
Ibn al-Mubārak, strengthen my argument.
71 See in detail, Chapter 4 in this monograph.
72 ʿAfifi based his edition on two manuscripts: Berlin 3388 and Cairo, Dar al-kutub
al-miṣriyya, Taṣawwuf section, 178 – see his Introduction, 83.
73 ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Aḥmad al-Fāwī Maḥmūd, in the Introduction to his edition of
al-Sulamī’s Uṣūl al-Malāmatiyya wa-ghalaṭāt al-ṣūfiyya (Cairo, 1405/1985), lists the
existing manuscripts – see 102. It seems that he has based his edition on the Cairo
178 MS. in addition to MS. Dar al-kutub al-miṣriyya no. 238 (taṣawwuf Taymūr). In
his notes, al-Fāwī is concerned mainly with elaborating on the themes under discus-
sion; I could not see in them any references to variant or problematic readings.
74 See 144; there is no footnote to indicate a different reading, as would be expected
from comparing this reading with ʿAfifi’s version.
75 The comparison between the two editions raises many editorial and textual issues; a
thorough scientific edition of this important text is, no doubt, called for.
76 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb ‫ﺍﻟﻤﻜﺎﺳﺐ‬
al-Lumaʿ, 196:‫ ﻻ ﺧﻴﺮ ﻓﻴﻤﻦ ﻻ‬:‫ﻭﺣﻜﻲ ﻋﻦ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﺭﻙ >!< ﺍﻧﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬
‫ﻳﺬﻭﻕ ﺫﻝ‬
‫ ﻻ ﺧﻴﺮ ﻓﻴﻤﻦ ﻻ ﻳﺬﻭﻕ ﺫﻝ ﺍﻟﻤﻜﺎﺳﺐ‬:‫ﻭﺣﻜﻲ ﻋﻦ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﺭﻙ >!< ﺍﻧﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬
77 MS. Berlin f. 153b, ll. 1–2.
78 Note the advice that Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār gives to one of his disciples: “It is better for
you to be known as ʿAbd Allāh al-ḥajjām than as ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿārif or as ʿAbd
Allāh al-zāhid” – al-Sulamī, Risālat al-malāmatiyya, ed. ʿAfifi, 94 (see also Chapter 4
in this monograph).
79 Ed. Barūd, 298–306 = MS. Berlin 153a–156b.
80 Cf.‫ﻭﺟﻞ‬
‫ﻭﻳﺨﺘﺎﺭ‬ also
‫ﷲ ﻋﺰ‬Tahdhīb, f. ‫ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺐ‬
‫ﻭﻳﺘﻮﻛﻞ ﻋﻠﻰ‬ 155b,‫ﻓﻴﺘﺮﻙ‬ll. ‫ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺐ‬
12–14:‫ ﺍﻥ ﺍﻷﻓﻀﻞ ﺍﻥ ﻳﺆﺛﺮ ﺍﻟﺘﻮﻛﻞ ﻋﻠﻰ‬:‫ﻭﺃﻣﺎ ﺃﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ ﻓﺎﻧﻬﻢ ﻗﺎﻟﻮﺍ‬
‫ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺐ ﻓﻴﺘﺮﻙ ﺍﻟﻜﺴﺐ ﻭﻳﺘﻮﻛﻞ ﻋﻠﻰ ﷲ ﻋﺰ ﻭﺟﻞ ﻭﻳﺨﺘﺎﺭﺍﻻﺳﺘﻴﻄﺎﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺎﺟﺪ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﻫﻲ ﺑﻴﻮﺕ ﷲ ﻋﺰ ﻭﺟﻞ‬. ‫ﺍﻷﻓﻀﻞ ﺍﻥ ﻳﺆﺛﺮ ﺍﻟﺘﻮﻛﻞ‬
Note, that the Karrāmiyya, too, upheld what they called taḥrīm al-makāsib
122   Schools and teachers
(­ prohibiting work for livelihood) – see Margaret Malamud, “Politics of Heresy in
Medieval Khurasan: The Karramiyya in Nishapur”, Iranian Studies 27(1/4) (1994),
42–3; note the citation from Kitāb al-kasb by the early Ḥanafī scholar al-Shaybānī
(d. 189/804), on the objection of ʿUmar, the second caliph, to practising tawakkul
rather than earning a living – 44, n. 46 (quoting S.D. Goitein, “Middle-Eastern Bour-
geoisie”, 224). On this controversial attitude, with its anti-zuhdī overtones, see also
Chapter 1 in this monograph.
81 Barūd reads here ‫تصنع‬.
82 See al-Sarrāj,‫ﻛﺴﺒﻚ‬Kitāb
‫ﺗﻀﻴﻌﻬﻤﺎ ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻭﺍﻟﺘﻮﻛﻞ ﺍﺫﺍ ﻟﻢ‬
al-Lumaʿ, 196: ‫ ﻣﻜﺎﺳﺒﻚ ﻻ ﺗﻤﻨﻌﻚ ﻋﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﻔﻮﻳﺾ‬:‫ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﺭﻙ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬
‫ ﻣﻜﺎﺳﺒﻚ ﻻ ﺗﻤﻨﻌﻚ ﻋﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﻔﻮﻳﺾ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﻮﻛﻞ ﺍﺫﺍ ﻟﻢ ﺗﻀﻴﻌﻬﻤﺎ ﻓﻲ ﻛﺴﺒﻚ‬:‫ﻭﻛﺎﻥ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﺭﻙ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬
83 Ed. ʿAfifi, 101; cf. the Naqshbandī principle of khalwat dar anjuman (in Arabic:
al-khalwa fī ‘l-jalwa) which has its roots in malāmatī attitudes.
84 MS Berlin 153a, ll. 16–17.
85 Raḥma means ‘mercy’ as well as ‘sustenance’ (s.v. Lane, 1056 – with reference to
Q. 41:50) – with thanks to Guy Ron-Gilboa who alerted me to this uncommon
meaning.
86 ‫ ﻭﻗﺒﻠﺔ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﺭﻓﻴﻦ ﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻦ‬،‫ ﻭﻗﺒﻠﺔ ﺍﻟﺨﺎﺹ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺵ ﻭﻫﻮ ﻗﺒﻠﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﻼﺋﻜﺔ‬،‫ ﻓﻘﺒﻠﺔ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﻜﻌﺒﺔ‬:‫ ﺍﻟﻘﺒﻠﺔ ﺛﻼﺙ‬:‫ﻭﻋﻦ ﺍﻟﺸﺒﻠﻲ ﻗﺎﻝ‬
‫ – ﻳﻨﻈﺮﻭﻥ ﺑﻨﻮﺭ ﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺭﺑﻬﻢ ﻋﺰ ﻭﺟﻞ‬al-Khargūshī, Tahdhīb al-asrār, “Bāb fī dhikr
al-ṣalāt”, 237.
87 See Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-ʿuns, trans. Muḥammad b. Zakariyya al-Qurashī (Beirut,
1424/2003), 312.
88 See ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, ed. ʿA.ʿU. al-Bārūdī (Beirut: Dār al-Jinān,
1408/1988), 279.
89 For the two Nīshāpūrī schools, see Chapter 4 in this monograph.
90 See Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, 539ff. Note that the nisba al-Ḥanafī reflects his tribal origins
rather than his legal affiliation.
91 See ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, A Critical Edition, 18, 20.
92 See Samʿānī, al-Ansāb; al-Khargūshī, Tahdhīb al-asrār, ed. Bassām Muḥammad
Bārūd (Abu Dhabī: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1999), 36 and 156.
93 Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, Vol. 10 (Beirut, 1997), 431 (no. 5594).
94 See notes 5, 90.
95 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-ʿuns (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī Maḥmūdī, 1337), 312–13.
96 See Adab al-mulūk fī bayān ḥaqāʾiq al-taṣawwuf, ed. Bernd Radtke (Beirut: Ergon,
1991) 42, l. 2.
97 For migration of disciples after the demise of their teachers, see Chapter 4 in this
monograph.
98 See ‫ﺍﻟﺘﺼﻮﻑ‬
al-Sulamī,
‫ ﺑﻐﺪﺍﺩ ﻓﻲ‬Ṭabaqāt ‫ﻣﺸﺎﻳﺦ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ‬356:
al-ṣūfiyya,
‫ ﻋﺠﺎﺋﺐ‬:‫ﻳﻘﻮﻟﻮﻥ‬ ‫ﻭﺃﻗﺎﻡ ﺑﺒﻐﺪﺍﺩ ﺣﺘﻰ ﺻﺎﺭ ﺃﺣﺪ ﻣﺸﺎﻳﺦ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ ﻭﺃﺋﻤﺘﻬﻢ ﺣﺘﻰ … ﻛﺎﻥ‬
.‫ ﺇﺷﺎﺭﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﺸﺒﻠﻲ ﻭﻧﻜﺖ ﺍﻟﻤﺮﺗﻌﺶ ﻭﺣﻜﺎﻳﺎﺕ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ ﺍﻟﺨﻠﺪﻱ‬:‫ ﻋﺠﺎﺋﺐ ﺑﻐﺪﺍﺩ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺘﺼﻮﻑ ﺛﻼﺙ‬:‫ﺦ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ ﻭﺃﺋﻤﺘﻬﻢ ﺣﺘﻰ ;… ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﺸﺎﻳﺦ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ ﻳﻘﻮﻟﻮﻥ‬
also
; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla ed. Khalīl al-Manṣūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,
2001), 72, 85, 135, 265–6; Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, Vol. 5, 253; al-Qazwīnī, Āthār
al-bilād, 401; also Adab al-mulūk, ed. Radtke, 33 l. 20; 42.
99 For the malāmatī extreme endeavour to shut off their awareness to their own mystical
experiences, see Chapter 4 in this monograph.
6 Facing hostility in Transoxiana
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Muḥammad
ibn al-Faḍl

Introduction
In this chapter, I wish to tell the story of two early mystics from Transoxiana
who experienced harassment and opposition in their hometowns of Tirmidh and
Balkh: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and
Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī. Both lived in the north-eastern region of the
Islamic world known as Transoxiana (in Arabic mā warāʾ al-nahr), mostly
during the third/ninth century, a time when mystics were not yet generically
named Ṣūfīs. Extant letters, addressed by al-Tirmidhī to Ibn al-Faḍl, show that
they had been familiar with one another. Two letters by al-Tirmidhī to Ibn
al-Faḍl survived. They contain answers to questions addressed to him by Ibn
al-Faḍl, from which we learn that the correspondence must have been mutual.
The pivotal issue discussed in this correspondence relates to ‘mystical psych-
ology’ and to the practices of training the nafs (riyāḍat al-nafs) to eliminate its
power.1 In one respect they shared a similar fate: both were the target of harsh
criticism and restrictions that were imposed on them by local influential scholars
(ʿulamāʾ) and rulers. From a short autobiographical work by al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī we have his first-hand description of his case. From a wider literary
perspective, we read about the ordeals of both Muḥammads in the biographical
literature, notably in Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya by Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (on
whom most later biographers rely) as well as in al-Sulamī’s short treatise, aptly
titled Dhikr miḥan al-mashāyikh al-ṣūfiyya (On the Trials of the Ṣūfī Elders).
The theme of conflicts between traditional scholars, the ʿulamāʾ, and Muslim
mystics, is well known and adequately researched. Frederick de Jong and Bernd
Radtke edited an extensive volume titled Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen
Centuries of Controversies and Polemics (Leiden, Brill: 1999) dedicated to this
subject.2 As the title suggests, the essays assembled in this volume cover the
history of Islamic mysticism from its early beginnings to modern times and
across the eastern and western areas in which Ṣūfism had been present. Gerhard
Böwering’s paper, “Early Sufism between Persecutions and Heresy” (45–67),
offers an insightful overview of the early period but it does not relate to our two
protagonists. Its focus is on Ṣūfīs’ endeavour to find their path to God by means
of sincere, inward ‘conversion’ (tawba) fuelled by introspection (muḥāsabat
Figure 6.1  Map of Transoxiana.
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   125
­al-nafs). Both tawba and muḥāsaba, writes Böwering, often brought them into
conflict with traditional sensitivities. Böwering mentions the expulsion of
­distinguished Ṣūfī figures from their hometowns, be it for claiming to have had
mystical visions or due to internal disputes among Ṣūfīs themselves. The lengthy
list of ninth–tenth-century Ṣūfīs under attack presented by Böwering speaks for
itself. As for primary sources, a small treatise by Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-Sulamī (d. 1021), titled The Ordeals of Ṣūfī Masters (Dhikr miḥan
al-mashāyikh al-Ṣūfiyya), validates Böwering’s list by providing succinct
information on ordeals (miḥan) inflicted upon Ṣūfīs by religious or govern-
mental opponents.3 Among those afflicted, al-Sulamī does mention al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī and Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl, the two third/ninth-century mystics at
the centre of this chapter. As we shall see, al-Sulamī’s treatise became the
source for later chroniclers and hagiographers relating to these two personalities.

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c.900)

A first-hand record, a short autobiography written in Arabic by al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī himself, tells the story of his ordeals in the first person. In this short
document, titled Badʾ Shaʾn, al-Tirmidhī describes the beginning of his spiritual
search and supplies us with various anecdotes concerning points in his spiritual
journey: his inspirational ḥajj, his spiritual tawba, periods of withdrawal and
ascetical practices, as well as revelations and dreams – not only his own but also
his wife’s.4 All these make it a remarkable early piece of autobiographical writ-
ing by a mystic. Al-Tirmidhī devotes some paragraphs to the animosity that his
mystical teachings fuelled against him in his home town. He writes how, after a
time of profound mystical experiences, there followed a difficult period during
which he was vehemently attacked by influential compatriots, whom he dispar-
agingly names “people who pretended to be in possession of knowledge”
(ashbāh mimman yantaḥilūna al-ʿilm). They slandered him with accusations of
innovation (bidʿa) and base inclination (hawā). He writes,

The intensity of the ordeal increased to the point that I was denounced in front
of the governor of Balkh. The governor ordered to have the matter examined
and it was reported to him that there was someone discoursing on love (man
yatakallamu fī ’l-ḥubb), corrupting people, engaging in heretical innovation
and claiming to be a prophet. They wrongly attributed to me things that had
never occurred in my mind. Eventually, I was summoned to Balkh and in the
presence of the governor I was ordered to stop discoursing on love.5

Two notes are due here: first, the idiom yatakallamu fī, and often yatakallamu
ʿalā, suggests not simply “discussing” a religious point but also imparting teaching
to an audience – in this case, spiritual teachings concerning love, most probably
mystical love.6 Second, as is borne out by Böwering in his above-mentioned
chapter, other contemporary mystics, too, were subjected to persecution and har-
assment for speaking on the love between man and God. Conspicuous in this
126   Schools and teachers
respect were, for example, the ordeals of the ninth-century Baghdādī Ṣūfī
al-Nūrī, ordeals about which Böwering writes at some length.7
Al-Sulamī’s Miḥan al-mashāyikh not only corroborates al-Tirmidhī’s testi-
mony; it also supplies us with additional details. Al-Sulamī writes:

As for Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī, after he had authored two books –
ʿIlal al-sharīʿā (The Causes of the Religious Law) and Khatm al-wilāya
(The Seal of the Friendship with God) – people denounced him due to these
two books saying that he ranked the Friends (awliyāʾ) above the prophets
(anbiyāʾ). In this they were erroneous.8 They expelled him from Tirmidh
and he went to Balkh, where he resided for a while till he went back to the
people of his hometown.9

Some discrepancies between al-Tirmidhī’s personal testimony and al-Sulamī’s

reference should be noted: As the main objection of the slanderers, al-Tirmidhī
mentions his discourse on love and his alleged claim to prophethood. He does
not mention any books he had written. According to him, he was not expelled
from Tirmidh, only summoned in front of the governor of Balkh. He does not
mention staying in Balkh for a period before returning to his home town. It
seems that soon after his encounter with the governor of Balkh he returned to
Tirmidh where, with a small group of disciples, he resumed his practices of spir-
itual purification and the Remembrance of God (dhikr). During this period, he
tells us, he and his wife went through profound experiences, which he describes
in detail in his mystical journal. He also mentions the political upheaval that
took place in his hometown after his return from Balkh and the eventual demise
of his former adversaries. He does not supply us with precise historical informa-
tion; it is evident, however, that he refers to the uprising of Yaʿqūb ibn Layth
al-Ṣaffār in 259/873, which resulted in the downfall of the Ṭāhirid dynasty in
Khurāsān and the establishment of the Ṣaffārids there. The Ṭāhirids, who were
the ruling dynasty in Khurāsān between 205/821–259/873, had been known as
strict Orthodox Sunnites who quenched any non-compliant activities.10
As for the books authored by al-Tirmidhī, which, according to al-Sulamī,
were the cause for his persecution, it should be asked why a book with the pos-
sible title of ʿIlal al-sharīʿa (The Causes of the Legal Law) might have aroused
antagonism towards the author to the point of publicly denouncing him.
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī indeed authored a book which bears a similar, but not
necessarily identical, title to the one mentioned by al-Sulamī. The book, whose
precise title is uncertain, survived in several manuscripts and has been edited
and published by Khālid Zahrī. It is Zahrī who, for internal philological reasons,
selected for it the title of Ithbāt al-ʿilal, namely, “Affirmation of the Causes”.11
Does the book shed light on the challenge to traditional teachings with which
al-Tirmidhī might have been accused? From al-Tirmidhī’s opening lines it
immediately transpires that the question of taʿlīl al-sharīʿa (explaining the
causes of the religious law) had been polemical and controversial.12 To an
unknown interlocutor, al-Tirmidhī writes:
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   127
You have asked me concerning the dispute among people in the matter of
affirming the causes of commanding [right] and forbidding [wrong] (ithbāt
al-ʿilal fī’l-amr wa-l-nahy).13 Some maintain that the laws are the indication
of the position of men vis-à-vis God as worshipping servants; for by
positive and negative laws, God made them worshippers ( fa-taʿabbadahum
lil-amr wal-nahy). [They argue that] His laws do not have a cause (wa-laysa
li-amrihi ʿilla); it is nothing but trial and tribulation (wa-innamā huwa
imtiḥān wa-ibtilāʾ). Others maintain that although there is no doubt that
God has subjected men to trials and tribulations, the causes of the laws are
nevertheless valid (ʿilaluhā qāʾima). Those who know them know, and
those who are ignorant of them are ignorant.14

In these opening lines, al-Tirmidhī verifies that in his time and place a polemic
with regards to the attempt to find the causes of the Law (taʿlīl al-sharīʿa) had
been current. The main contentious point that he makes, however, is that such
knowledge, though valid and permissible, is nonetheless esoteric, not everyone
is privy to it. As it turns out, such knowledge, according to him, can be attained
only by means of ḥikma, supernal wisdom. This he brings to bear by introducing
a (fictional?) polemical discourse with an interlocutor. Discussing the legitimacy
of enquiring about the causes of divine law in the first place, al-Tirmidhī asks
his opponent: “Has God subjected people to His laws haphazardly or out of
wisdom ( juzāf  an am min al-ḥikma)?” Should the opponent say, ‘haphazardly’, he
reduces the whole business to a mere game. And should he say, ‘out of wisdom’,
he is further asked: “tell us then what is this wisdom? Since you are incapable of
attaining this wisdom, perhaps you are denied the light of wisdom altogether!”15
Now he arrives at the crux of the matter. When the interlocutor asks
al-Tirmidhī to explain to him what this ‘wisdom’ entails, al-Tirmidhī answers:

God favored the wise with this knowledge [of the causes of the laws]. He
who observes it in utmost sincerity, God gives him both the external know-
ledge and the internal one (atāhu ẓāhir al-ʿilm wa-bāṭinahu). The external
knowledge is expressed by the tongue …; the internal one is within the
hearts. This is ‘the beneficial knowledge’ (al-ʿilm al-nāfiʿ).

The notion of al-ʿilm al-nāfiʿ is based on a prophetic ḥadīth which stipulates two
kinds of knowledge: the knowledge in the heart, which is the beneficial know-
ledge, and the knowledge of the tongue, which is God’s claim on man.16
Wisdom, concludes al-Tirmidhī, is that aspect of knowledge which is internal;
the internal is the kernel of a thing (lubāb al-shayʾ) and the external is its shell
(qishr al-shayʾ).17
Then, after a lengthy exposition describing the human hierarchy and stipu-
lating that only God’s chosen ones (al-khāṣṣa) may acquire God’s wisdom and
fathom its meaning, al-Tirmidhī ends his introduction thus:

From His Supreme Wisdom (al-ḥikma al-bāligha), God, glorified be

He, devised for each messenger a law consisting of positive and negative
128   Schools and teachers
commandments. One kind [of people] is informed about the laws and he
who knows them is among them. The other kind consists of those who
possess understanding of this knowledge (ahl al-fahm li-hādhā al-ʿilm).
They only elucidate its beautiful aspect ( fa-innamā yufassirūna jamīla
al-ʿilm), for knowledge has beauty and its beauty is in its interiority
( fa-inna lil-ʿilm jamālan wa-jamāluhu fī bāṭinihi).18

Thus, the attempt to shed light on al-Tirmidhī’s Ithbāt al-ʿilal exposes two aspects
which relate to this chapter: first, the presence of a polemic on the question of
taʿlīl al-sharīʿa among Khurāsānī Sunnis.19 Second, it also reveals al-Tirmidhī’s
radical vision of the exclusive participation of only the elected few (al-khāṣṣa)
with God’s Supreme Wisdom. The laws stem from divine wisdom, but only a
minority of believers, endowed with mystical vision and understanding ( fahm),
are made able to comprehend the inner meaning of the religious law, both in its
general scheme as well as in its particular laws. It should be noted that, notwith-
standing the mystical underpinning of al-Tirmidhī’s vision, he presents it in an
argumentative rational method, not unlike that of kalām dialectics. This may bear
the hallmarks of al-Tirmidhī’s Ḥanafī affiliation to the ahl al-raʾy.20
An attempt to ascertain the causes for al-Tirmidhī’s expulsion from his home-
town by means of the social history and political landscape of the time – namely
in the dissention between Ḥanafīs and other madhāhib in Transoxiana and
Khurāsān – has not yielded definite results (see also “Correspondence and Con-
clusion” section). Evidently, the resentment that Ithbāt al-ʿilal stirred was not
necessarily because of its Ḥanafī overtones, but due to its audacious vision of a
spiritual élite elected by divine wisdom to the exclusion of the traditional
scholars (al-ʿulamāʾ) – they may know the law but do not understand the
wisdom behind it. Those few who are God inspired, undoubtedly himself
included, belong to the spiritual hierarchy of awliyāʾ, abdāl, ṣiddīqūn, to which
al-Tirmidhī devoted most of his literary work.21 Undeniably, what lay at the
foundation of al-Tirmidhī’s book was his conviction that only by means of
­God-inspired understanding ( fahm) and wisdom (ḥikma) could the causes of the
law be fathomed. Hence the superiority of the awliyāʾ over the ʿulamāʾ.
Yet, besides the ʿulamāʾ, there were other contenders to a position of exclu-
sivity among the believers: the ahl al-bayt, the direct descendants of the Prophet
Muḥammad through ʿAlī and Fāṭima. In various passages in his writings,
al-Tirmidhī argues that the intimate relationship between God and His Friends,
the awliyāʾ, supersedes the hereditary superiority of the Shīʿī Imāms.22 Shīʿīs
uphold the exclusive divinity of their Imāms, which is bestowed solely upon the
ahl al-bayt, but for al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, the true ahl al-bayt are those who “sit
with God” ( julasāʾ Allāh); thanks to whom the world exists and rain falls.23 For
him, the spiritual lineage, nasab, exemplified by the Friends of God, overrides
the genealogical one exemplified by the Shīʿī Imāms. This point raises the fol-
lowing query: Given that Shīʿī scholars of the ninth–tenth centuries did author
several books on the subject of the divine law’s rationale (at times, referred to as
Ratio Legis – see note 13), was al-Tirmidhī’s book motivated, inter alia, by a
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   129
wish to respond to Shīʿī testimonies of the wisdom of their Imāms? I cannot
offer a definite answer to this question, but it is, nonetheless, worth posing.
The second book authored by al-Tirmidhī which, according to al-Sulamī,
roused the hostility of the people of Tirmidh towards him is The Seal of the
Friends of God (Khātam, or Khatm, al-wilāya). This book was thought lost for a
long time until one manuscript was found in Istanbul by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā in 1954
and a second one by Nicholas Heer in 1956. It was published by Yaḥyā in 1965
titled Kitāb Khatm al-awliyāʾ24 and, again, titled Kitāb Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, by Bernd
Radtke, as part of his Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmiḏ (Thalāthat
muṣannafāt lil-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī).25 The notion of the ‘seal of the Friends of
God’ (khātim, or khātam, al-awliyāʾ) adopted by al-Tirmidhī relates to the formid-
able figure at the head of the spiritual hierarchy and to his extraordinary position
as God’s ‘proof’ (ḥujjat Allāh). From the perspective of traditional Islam, such a
concept is doubtless provocative. Not only does al-Tirmidhī ascribe to this figure
features, which elevate him almost to the rank of the prophets, analogous to the
rank of Muḥammad as the ‘Seal of the Prophets’ (khātam al-anbiyāʾ), it is also
alarmingly similar to Shīʿī notions regarding the Imāms. The typology and com-
plexity of the extraordinary phenomenon of the ‘seal of the Friends of God’ and its
Shīʿī echoes – despite al-Tirmidhī’s demonstrative refutations of the genealogical
lineage (nasab) claimed by the Shīʿīs (or rather the Rāfiḍīs, as he would have it)26 for
their Imāms – these topics have been dealt with in a number of scholarly works.27
It seems likely, therefore, that the people of Tirmidh, stirred by the ruling and the
religious establishments and sensitive to Shīʿī overtones, accused Muḥammad ibn
ʿAlī of “ranking the awliyāʾ above the anbiyāʾ “. This ties in with al-Tirmidhī’s own
testimony in his autobiographical text that he was accused of claiming to be a
prophet (see “al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī” section above). Notwithstanding al-Sulamī’s
defensive comment that “in this they were erroneous”, one can imagine the shock
and anxiety that novel ideas about the supremacy of the mystical hierarchy, the
alleged true heirloom of prophecy, could have invoked in a traditional milieu such as
Tirmidh and Khurāsān, especially during the rule of the Ṭāhirid dynasty. One may
also observe with wonder that these radical ideas, offensive though they were to tra-
ditionalists and authoritarians, did not die down. As both Chodkiewicz and Ebstein
show, they endured fruitfully into later generations of Islamic mysticism.28

Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl (d. 319/931)

The section in al-Sulamī’s Miḥan al-mashāyikh al-ṣūfiyya that precedes the one
on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī is devoted to Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī.29 It is
somewhat more detailed than the former. Al-Sulamī writes:

As for Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī, he was the Imām of Balkh uphold-
ing the madhhab of the Ḥadīth Folk (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth).30 Due to the
madhhab, the people of Balkh were hostile to him.31

Al-Sulamī then goes on to tell how they insisted on driving Ibn al-Faḍl out of
Balkh claiming that he was an innovator (mubtadiʿ). As he refused to leave, they
130   Schools and teachers
dragged him tied to a rope through the market from one end of the town to the
other. When they finally let go of him, he cursed them saying: “May God pluck
out of your hearts His knowledge and love (nazaʿa Allāhu min qulūbikum
maʿrifatahu wa-maḥabbatahu).” Al-Sulamī then remarks:

It is said that after his curse, no Ṣūfī emerged from the town of Balkh,
although previously it had been the home of Ṣūfīsm (i.e. mysticism) and
renunciation (baʿda an kānat bayt al-taṣawwuf wal-zuhd). If there were a
Ṣūfī among them, he was a newcomer (gharīb) or the son of newcomers.

The section ends with the information that eventually Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl
went to Samarqand, was regarded by its people as a semi-prophet (shibh
al-nabī) and lived there to the end of his life.32 The entry on Muḥammad b.
al-Faḍl al-Balkhī in a later biographical source, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ (The
Lives of Noble Personalities) by Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), is
based on al-Sulamī’s miḥan but adds a piece of information which is not found
in the edition of the miḥan known to me. Al-Dhahabī’s addition runs as follows:

In Miḥan al-ṣūfiyya al-Sulamī says:

“When Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl discoursed in Balkh on understanding the

Qurʾān (takallama fī fahm al-qurʾān) and the states of the leaders
(wa-aḥwāl al-aʾimma), the jurisprudents of Balkh rejected this and called
him a ‘fabricator’ (mubtadiʿ). This was because he upheld the madhhab of
the Ḥadīth Folk.”33

It is not clear what is meant by these idioms or to what they refer. Undoubtedly,
however, they intimate an insistence, shared perhaps by both protagonists, on
the possibility of grasping the Qurʾān by a special kind of ‘understanding’.

Correspondence and conclusion

Beyond the literary juxtaposition by al-Sulamī of al-Tirmidhī and Ibn al-Faḍl in
the context of the hostility and afflictions to which both were exposed, their
association is known also by means of other sources. As shown in Chapter 4,
extant letters of al-Tirmidhī to Ibn al-Faḍl witness their actual and apparently
cordial relationship. Other sources reveal also the relationship of Ibn al-Faḍl
with the malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr, and particularly with Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī. In
his Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, for example, al-Sulamī quotes Abū ʿUthmān as saying,
“If I were strong enough, I would have travelled to my brother Muḥammad ibn
al-Faḍl to find in his company solace for my innermost heart (sirrī).”34 In his let-
ters to both Ibn al-Faḍl and Abū ʿUthmān, despite the underlying friendliness,
al-Tirmidhī’s tone is authoritative, not to say argumentative. His arguments
revolve mainly around the overzealous emphasis of the Nīshāpūrīs and their
­followers on continuously observing the nafs’s manipulations and on how to
counteract them. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī proposes instead the direct and, according
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   131

Figure 6.2  Scheme of correspondence.

to him, more efficacious, practice of ‘remembering God’. The actual relationship

between these three ninth–tenth-century mystics from Khurāsān and Transoxiana,
which can be corroborated by means of the surviving correspondence, can be
portrayed graphically as above (Figure 6.2).35
The historical background upon which these letters were written may be sup-
plied by other primary sources available to us – hagiographies, biographies and
chronicles. Their brevity, however, and their selective data require some specu-
lative elaboration on our part. Thus, to begin with, it was not clear to me why
Balkh, which denied the mystical teachings of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, was also
the place from which Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl, who upheld the positions of the
‘Ḥadīth Folk’, was so violently expelled. Gradually it became clear to me that
the hostility towards these two personalities took place at different times and
was based on different grounds. Whereas, in relation to al-Tirmidhī, his mystical
stance and claims were the main issues, in relation to Ibn al-Faḍl the cause must
be sought in the political and theological changes which Balkh went through in
the years after al-Tirmidhī’s episode. The Ṭāhirīd dynasty (205/821–259/873),
which was a staunch upholder of the Sunna, and can thus be related to the
‘Ḥadīth Folk’, suspected al-Tirmidhī’s mystical teachings, which, in some
respects, were not dissimilar to Shīʿī doctrines. During the lifetime of Ibn
al-Faḍl, however, the Ṭāhirīds were no longer in power. The Ṣaffārids, who took
power in 873 – some fifty-eight years before Ibn al-Faḍl’s death – were no sup-
porters of the ‘Ḥadīth Folk’. Not only did Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl adhere to ahl
al-sunna wal-ḥadīth; he was also, according to al-Sulamī, their Imām, their reli-
gious leader.36 So far Balkh, but what about Samarqand, where he was warmly
welcomed? Was he accepted in Samarqand because its people, too, favoured the
madhhab of the ‘Ḥadīth Folk’? This – to the best of my understanding – does
not tie in too well with the predominance of the Ḥanafiyya there, especially
during the rule of the Sāmānids (861–1003), who took over from the Ṣaffārids.37
132   Schools and teachers
It seems – and this is borne out by the studies of Madelung – that the madhāhib
formation in Khurāsān during the ninth–tenth centuries was not yet consolidated
and cannot therefore be a firm platform from which to fully weigh and explain
the hostility towards, or the reception of, our second protagonist. It can be said,
in sum, that although the anecdotes concerning al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and
Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl, as well as their mutual correspondence, may echo the
theological and political struggles of their time, the issues at their heart relate
rather to their mystical positions. Consequently, in this study, we could not add
much information concerning the political and doctrinal history of Khurāsān and
Transoxiana; we could, however, shed some light on the struggles and hardships
of two important personalities there stemming from their association with the
spiritual elite of their time and place.

Appendix
Letters of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Tirmidhī to Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl
(in reply to the latter’s unavailable letters) – Short Excerpts38

1. ff. 15b–17b
Concerning what you have mentioned, may God be kind to you, as regards
misfortunes: the misfortunes of the self (nafs) exist, but they are trivial com-
pared with the misfortunes of the hearts. One of the greatest misfortunes of the
hearts is being veiled from God; being content and satisfied with where the
nafs has settled. When such a misfortune befalls one, other misfortunes
dwindle in its face. Drunkards become aware of the assault of drunkenness
only when they sober up; when they sober up from their inebriation, then the
pain enters their hearts and they become distraught, stop trusting anything,
and their life becomes constricted. It’s as if they are in limbo (barzakh): dead
to God’s justice until God’s kindness reaches them and their hearts become
alive.
.‫[ ﻛﺘﺎﺏ ﺍﻹﻣﺎﻡ ﺃﺑﻮ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺭﺣﻤﺔ ﷲ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻔﻀﻞ ﺟﻮﺍﺏ ﻛﺘﺎﺑﻪ‬10 ‫ ﺏ ﺱ‬15‫ ]ﻭ‬.1
‫ ﻭﺍﻥّ ﻣﻦ ﺃﻋﻈﻢ ﻣﺼﺎﺋﺐ‬.‫ﻓﺄﻣﺎ ﻣﺎ ﺫﻛﺮﺕ ﺃﻛﺮﻣﻚ ﷲ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﺎﺋﺐ ﻓﻤﺼﺎﺋﺐ ﺍﻟﻨﻔﺲ ﻛﺎﺋﻨﺔ ﻭﻟﻜﻨﻬﺎ ﺗﻬﻮﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺟﻨﺐ ﻣﺼﺎﺋﺐ ﺍﻟﻘﻠﻮﺏ‬
.‫ ﻓﻤﻦ ﺣﻠّﺖ ﺑﻪ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﻴﺒﺔ ﻓﻘﺪ ﺗﻼﺷﺖ ﻣﺼﺎﺋﺐ ﻓﻲ ﺟﻨﺒﻬﺎ‬.‫ﺍﻟﻘﻠﻮﺏ ﺣﺠﺒﻬﺎ ﻋﻦ ﷲ ﻭﺭﺿﺎﻫﺎ ﺑﺤﻴﺚ ﺣﻠّﺖ ﻭﺍﻗﺘﺼﺮﺕ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ‬
‫ ﻓﺈﺫﺍ ﺃﻓﺎﻗﻮﺍ ﻣﻦ ﺳﻜﺮﻫﻢ ﺧﻠﺺ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻗﻠﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﺍﻷﻟﻢ ﻭﻗﻠﻘﻮﺍ ﻭﻟﻢ ﻳﻄﻤﺌﻨّﻮﺍ ﺇﻟﻰ‬،‫ﻭﺍﻟﺴﻜﺎﺭﻯ ﻻ ﻳﺼﻞ ﺇﻟﻴﻬﻢ ﻓﺠﻌﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﻴﺒﺔ ّﺇﻻ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺍﻹﻓﺎﻗﺔ‬
.‫ﺣﻖ ﷲ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﻨﺎﻟﻬﻢ ﻋﻄﻒ ﷲ ﻓﺘﺤﻴﻲ ﺗﻠﻚ ﺍﻟﻘﻠﻮﺏ‬ ّ ‫ ﻣﻮﺗﻰ ﻋﻦ‬:‫ ﻓﻬﻮ ﻛﺄ ّﻧﻬﻢ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺒﺮﺯﺥ‬،‫ﺷﻲء ﻓﻌﻴﺸﻬﻢ ﻣﻨﻐّﺺ‬

2. ff. 66a–68b
Your letter, may God prolong your life, has reached me and I have understood
it. You have mentioned the knowledge of the nafs and her meagre reliability.
You have asked me to reflect on this and explore it. Indeed, I have found that the
knowledge of the nafs is of two kinds: a right one and an adverse one. He who
wishes to know her from the side of ‘sincerity’ (ṣidq), then approaches sincerity
with deceit, he will not be saved from the adverse knowledge of her. This is
because the ‘inclination’ (al-hawā) lies in waiting watching one’s actions: No sooner
has sincerity confronted him with the nafs’ deceit, namely that something
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   133
appears clear to him, than ‘inclination’ coats and adorns the wickedness [that
inheres] within his interiority, so that he imagines that he has come to know the
nafs and her deceit, that he has turned away from her and returned to God pleading
for forgiveness. [Alas], despite such clarification, exploration and pleading, he
returns to a [state] of content and trust in the nafs …
According to us, he who seeks to know the nafs should avoid having trust in
her [altogether], should avoid being content with her, or even being occupied
with blaming her; all these cannot eradicate her, only her creator can. Then, with
genuine fright, he will ask refuge in God, for He is the only refuge …
Therefore, my advice to you, may God preserve you, is to observe God’s
order: watch what you do and, at a time like this, be wary of the vacillation of
the states, for it is at such times that His affair is hidden. Before advising you, I
have given myself the same advice …
This is a time of weeping; our tears ascend to God, perchance He may have
mercy on us. I urge you to be attentive to Him, for truths have appeared and the
doubtful has retracted from [our] attention. People are heedless; he who approaches
God’s order with adversity is doomed. Being wary of this, I warn you, out of care for
you and counselling – I ask God to grant you success and good guidance.
Peace be with you and with your brethren before you.
‫[ ﺭﺳﺎﻟﺔ ﺃﺑﻲ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﺘﺮﻣﺬﻱ ﺭﺣﻤﻪ ﷲ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻔﻀﻞ ﺭﺣﻤﻪ ﷲ‬2 ‫ ﺍ ﺱ‬66‫ ]ﻭ‬.2
.‫ﺑﺴﻢ ﷲ ﺍﻟﺮﺣﻤﻦ ﺍﻟﺮﺣﻴﻢ ﻭﺍﻟﺤﻤﺪ ﻭﺣﺪﻩ ﻭﺻﻠﻮﺍﺗﻪ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻭﺁﻟﻪ ﻭﺳﻠّﻢ‬
.‫ﺳﻼﻡ ﻋﻠﻴﻚ ﻭﺭﺣﻤﺔ ﷲ ﻭﺑﺮﻛﺎﺗﻪ ﻭﺍﺩﺍﻡ ﷲ ﻟﻚ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻓﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺴﻼﻣﺔ ﻭﺯﺍﺩ ﻓﻲ ﻧﻌﻤﻪ ﻋﻨﺪﻙ ﻭﻭﻓﻘﻚ ﻟﺸﻜﺮﻩ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ‬
‫ ﻓﺄﻣﺎ ﻣﺎ ﺫﻛﺮﺕ ﻣﻦ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﻨﻔﺲ ﻭﻗﻠّﺔ ﺍﻣﺎﻧﺘﻬﺎ ﻭﺳﺄﻟﺘﻨﻲ ﺍﻥ ﺃﺗﺪﺑّﺮﻩ ﻭﺍﺗﻔﻘّﺪ ﻣﻦ ﺫﻟﻚ ﻓﺎﻧّﻲ ﻭﺟﺪﺕ‬.‫ﻭﺻﻞ ﻛﺘﺎﺑﻚ ﺍﺑﻘﺎﻙ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻭﻓﻬﻤﺘﻪ‬
‫ ﻓﻤﻦ ﺭﺍﻡ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺘﻬﺎ ﻣﻦ ﻗﺒﻞ ﺍﻟﺼﺪﻕ ﻓﺬﻫﺐ ﻓﻘﺎﺑﻞ ﺍﻟﺼﺪﻕ ﺑﺎﻟﻜﺬﺏ ﻟﻢ‬،‫ ﺃﺣﺪﻫﻤﺎ ﺻﺤﻴﺢ ﻭﺍﻵﺧﺮ ﺳﻘﻴﻢ‬:‫ﺍﻥ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﻨﻔﺲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺿﺮﺑﻴﻦ‬
‫ﻣﻮﻩ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﻬﻮﻯ‬ ّ ‫ ﻭﺫﻟﻚ ﺍﻥّ ﺍﻟﻬﻮﻯ ﺑﻤﺮﺻﺪ ﻣﻦ ﻓﻌﻠﻪ ﻓﻜﻠّﻤﺎ ﻗﺎﺑﻞ ﺍﻟﺼﺪﻕ ﻣﻨﻪ ﺑﻜﺬﺑﻬﺎ ﻓﺘﺒﻴّﻦ ﻟﻪ ﺷﻲء‬،‫ﻳﻜﻦ ﻳﻨﺠﻮ ﻣﻦ ﺳﻘﻢ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺘﻬﺎ‬
‫ ﻭﺻﺪﺭ ﻋﻦ ﻫﺬﺍ‬،‫ﻭﺯﻳّﻦ ﻟﻪ ﺳﻮء ﺑﺎﻁﻨﻪ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﺨﻴﻞ ﺇﻟﻴﻪ ﺃﻥّ >ﻩ< ﻗﺪ ﻋﺮﻑ ﺍﻟﻨﻔﺲ ﻭﻋﺮﻑ ﻛﺬﺑﻬﺎ ﻭﺗﺎﺏ ﺇﻟﻰ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻣﻨﻬﺎ ﻭﺍﺳﺘﻐﻔﺮ‬
... ‫ﺍﻟﺘﺒﻴّﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﺪﺑّﺮ ﻭﺍﻻﺳﺘﻐﻔﺎﺭ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻁﻴﺐ ﻧﻔﺲ ﻭﻁﻤﺄﻧﻴﻨﺔ‬
‫ ﻗﺪ ﻓَﻄِ ﻦَ ﻭﻛﺎﺱ‬،‫ ﺃ[ ﻟﻬﺎ ﻋﻨﺪﻧﺎ‬67‫ﻭﻣﻦ ﺭﺍﻡ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺘﻬﺎ ﻣﻦ ﻗﺒﻞ ﻧﻮﺍﺓ )؟( ﺍﻟﺘﺪﺑﻴﺮ ﻓﻬﻴﻬﺎﺕ ﺃﻥ ﺗﻄﻤﺌﻦّ ﻧﻔﺴﻪ ﺃﻭ ﺗﻄﻴﺐ ﺃﻭ ﻳﺸﺘﻐﻞ ﺑﺎﻟﺬ ّﻡ ]ﻭ‬
...‫ ﻓﻔﺰﻉ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺭﺑّﻪ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﺠﺄ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻣﻦ ﻻ ﻳُﻠﺠﺄ ّﺇﻻ ﺇﻟﻴﻪ‬،‫ ﻭﺍﻥ ﻣﻦ ﻳﺰﻳﻠﻬﺎ ﺧﺎﻟﻘﻬﺎ‬،‫ﻭﺭﺃﻯ ﺃﻥ ﻫﺬﺍ ﻻ ﻳﺰﻭﻝ ﻋﻨﻪ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﻌﺮﻓﺔ ﻟﻬﺎ ﻭﺍﻟﺬ ّﻡ ﻟﻬﺎ‬
‫ ﺏ[ ﻭﺗﻜﻮﻥ ﻣﻨﻪ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺣﺬﺭ ﻣﻦ ﺗﻘﻠﻴﺐ ﺍﻷﺣﻮﺍﻝ ﻓﻲ‬68‫ﻭﻭﺻﻴّﺘﻲ ﺍﻳّﺎﻙ ﺭﺣﻤﻚ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻣﺮﺍﻗﺒﺔ ﺍﻣﺮ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻓﺘﻨﻈﺮ ﻣﺎﺫﺍ ﻳﺼﻨﻊ ]ﻭ‬
...‫ ﻭﺃﻭﺻﻴﺖ ﻧﻔﺴﻲ ﺑﻤﺜﻞ ﺫﻟﻚ ﻣﻦ ﻗﺒﻞ ﺃﻥ ﺃﻭﺻﻴﻚ‬.‫ ﻓﺎﻥّ ﻫﺬﺍ ﻭﻗﺖ ﺧﻔﻲ ﻋﻠﻴﻚ ﺷﺄﻧﻪ‬،‫ﻣﺜﻞ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﻮﻗﺖ‬
‫ ﻓﺎﺣﺐّ ﺃﻥ ﺗﻨﺘﺒﻪ ﻟﻪ ﻓﻘﺪ ﺟﺎءﺕ ﺍﻟﺤﻘﺎﺋﻖ ﻭﺫﻫﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﺸﻜﻮﻙ‬.‫ﻭﻫﺬﺍ ﻭﻗﺖ ﺍﻟﺒﻜﺎء ﻭﺍﻟﻌﺒﺮﺍﺕ ﺗﺼﻌﺪ ﻣﻨّﺎ ﺇﻟﻰ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻟﻌ ّﻞ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻳﺮﺣﻤﻨﺎ‬
‫ ﻓﺄﻧﺎ َﺣﺬِﺭ ﻟﻬﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺒﺎﺏ ﻭﺍﺣﺬﺭﻙ ﻟﺸﻔﻘﺘﻲ ﻋﻠﻴﻚ ﻭﻧﺼﺤﻲ ﻟﻚ‬.‫ ﻭﺍﻟﻬﻼﻙ ﻟﻤﻦ ﺍﺳﺘﻘﺒﻞ ﺃﻣﺮ ﷲ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﻨﺎﺻﺒﺔ‬،‫ ﻭﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﻓﻲ ﻏﻔﻠﺔ‬.‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻻﻧﺘﺒﺎﻩ‬
.‫ﻭﺍﺳﺄﻝ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﺗﻮﻓﻴﻘﻚ ﻭﺭﺷﺪﻙ‬
.‫ﺍﻟﺴﻼﻡ ﻋﻠﻴﻚ ﻭﺭﺣﻤﺔ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﻭﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﺧﻮﺍﻧﻚ ﻗﺒﻠﻚ‬
.‫ﺗ ّﻢ ﺍﻟﻜﺘﺎﺏ ﻭﺍﻟﺮﺳﺎﻟﺔ ﺑﺤﻤﺪ ﷲ ﻭﻣ ّﻨﻪ ﻭﺻﻠّﻰ ﷲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻭﺁﻟﻪ‬

Notes
  1 On this, see in detail Chapters 4 and 8.
  2 Frederik de Jong and Bernd Radtke (eds), Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen
Centuries of Controversies and Polemics (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
  3 Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn Sulamī, and Ismāʿīl Ibn Nujayd, Masāʼil wa-taʼwīlāt Ṣūfīyah,
eds Bilāl Urfahʿlī and Gerhard Böwering (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 2010), 55–9.
  4 See Chapter 11 in this monograph.
  5 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Badʾ shaʾn, in Kitāb
Khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kāthūlīkiyya, 1965),
17–18. See also Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane (trans. and eds), The Concept of
134   Schools and teachers
Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by Al-Ḥakīm Al-Tirmidhī; an
Annotated Translation with Introduction (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), §10.
  6 For relevant occurrences of yatakallamu fī/ʿalā in the sense of ‘to impart spiritual
teachings’, see, for example, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, ed. Khalīl Al-Manṣūr (Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2001), 66, 84, 237, 266, 274–5, 336, 407, 421 and 426.
  7 See Böwering, “Early Sufism between Persecutions and Heresy”, 55ff.; on al-Nūrī’s
persecution by Ghulām Khalīl, see al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, eds ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm
Maḥmūd and Ṭaha ʿAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥadītha, 1960), 492–3.
  8 This is al-Sulamī’s own observation – see also [n. 29] below.
  9 Al-Sulamī and Ibn Nujayd, Masāʼil wa-taʼwīlāt Ṣūfīyah, 57 §231. As the editors of
the miḥan note in their Introduction (17–18, in English), some of the material in this
short text seems to rely on the section titled fī dhikr al-mashāʾikh alladhīna
ramawhum bil-kufr in Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, see Introduction, 18.
Al-Sarrāj, however, mentions neither al-Tirmidhī nor Ibn al-Faḍl – see al-Sarrāj, The
Kitāb Al-Lumaʿ, 497–501. Note that the later Shāfiʿī scholar, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī
(d. 771/1310), while reproducing in his Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā al-Sulamī’s
entry, takes issue with al-Sulamī’s defence of al-Tirmidhī and writes: “Al-Sulamī
defended him by claiming that he was grossly misunderstood; I say, regardless, what
can we think of a Muslim who prefers any human being over and above the
­prophets?” – al-Subkī, Tāj al-Dīn, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʻīyah al-Kubrā (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ
al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1964–1971), Vol. 2:246 (no. 55).
10 On the Ṭāhirids, see Elton L. Daniel, “TAHERIDS”, Encyclopaedia Iranica online
(2015) – this article is detailed in terms of historical events but contains little
information concerning religious matters. On Yaʿqūb ibn Layth, see, for example,
Edmund Bosworth, “Yaʿqub b. Layṯ b. Moʿaddal”, Encyclopaedia Iranica online,
2002; see also Joel Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam: Abū Sulaymān
Al-Sijistānī and His Circle (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986).
11 For the extant manuscripts and their various possible titles, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Ithbāt al-ʿilal, ed. Khālid Zahrī (Rabat: Muḥammad V University, Kulliyyat al-Ādāb
wa-l-ʿUlūm al-Insāniyyah, 1998), 51–2.
12 Contrary to what seems to transpire from al-Tirmidhī’s opening lines, the rationale of
the divine law and its principles have not been eagerly discussed in modern scholar-
ship. As far as I could ascertain, the terms taʿlīl al-sharīʿa, or ʿilal al-sharīʿa them-
selves, have hardly inspired systematic studies (see also the following footnote). The
most thorough study known to me is Khālid Zahrī’s Taʿlīl al-sharīʿa bayna al-sunna
wal-shīʿa: al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī wa-Ibn Bābūya al-Qummī: Namūdhajayn (Beirut:
Dār al-Hādī, 2003). Note, however, the various studies on the methodologies of
drawing legal decisions – for example, W. Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); B. Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law
(Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998); A. Zysow, The Economy of
­Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory (Atlanta, GA:
Lockwood Press, 2013). It is noteworthy that this lack is in contrast to the fact that
among Shīʿī authors contemporaneous with al-Tirmidhī, works dealing with the
rationale of the Law were authored, seemingly with no controversy – on this, in addi-
tion to Zahrī’s study above, see R. Vilozny, “Réflexions sur le Kitāb al-ʿilal d’Aḥmad
b. Muḥammad al-Barqī (d. 274/888 or 280/894)”, in Le Shīʿisme Imāmite Quarante
Ans Après: Hommage À Etan Kohlberg, eds M.A. Amir-Moezzi, M.M. Bar-Asher
and S. Hopkins (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2009), 417–35; see also R. Vilozny,
­Constructing a Worldview: Al-Barqī’s Role in the Making of Early Shīʿī Faith (Turn-
hout: Brepols Publishers, 2017); and Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early
Shiʻism, 21.
13 Finding an English (or French) equivalent for the term ʿilal al-sharīʿa proves
­challenging – note Weiss’s use of Ratio Legis as one option, see Weiss, The Spirit of
 Facing hostility in Transoxiana   135
Islamic Law, 67–8; also, following him, Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law,
23 ff.; see also Vilozny, Constructing a World View, 187–8.
14 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Ithbāt al-ʿilal, ed. Zahrī, 67.
15 See ibid., 69. For a whole chapter on wisdom (bāb al-ḥikma) in a Ṣūfī compilation,
see al-Sīrjānī, Al-bayāḍ wal-sawād, eds N. Pourjavady and M. Pourmokhtar (Tehran
and Berlin: Iranian Institute of Philosophy and Freie Universität Berlin, 2011), 5–9;
note, especially, a citation by Mamshādh al-Dīnawarī (d. 299/911):
The wise ones (al-ḥukamāʾ) inherited Wisdom (al-ḥikma) by silence and contem-
plation … Scholars (al-ʿulamāʾ) inherited knowledge (al-ʿilm) by search (ṭalab):
what they heard from others, this they gained. The People of Interiority (ahl
al-bāṭin), however, inherited that [Wisdom] as a benefit ( fāʾida) from God, they do
not find it by other than He.
p. 7 (of the Arabic text) no. 15. For the prevalence of the appellation ḥakīm (rather
than ṣūfī) in Balkh and Transoxiana, see Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in
Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien”, IV: Exkurs, 551–2; see also, Radtke, “Theosophie
(ḥikma) und Philosophie ( falsafa): Ein Beitrag zur Frage der ḥikmat al-mašriq/
al-išrāq”, Asiatische Studien 42 (1988): 156–74.
16 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl fī maʿrifat aḥādīth al-rasūl, ed. Ismāʿīl
Ibrāhīm ʿAwaḍ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Bukhārī, 2008), Ch. 190, 715; also, al-Ghazālī,
Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Kitāb al-ʿilm, rubʿ al-ʿādāt, 150. In all these sources, the
­mentioned ḥadīth is cited in the name of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.
17 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Ithbāt al-ʿilal, ed. Zahrī.
18 See ibid., 78.
19 For Shīʿī literature on ʿilal al-sharīʿa, see note 12.
20 For al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s description of his early education consisting of ʿilm
al-raʾy, see Badʾ shaʾn, 14; see also Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane (trans. and eds),
The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996). On the predominance of the Ḥanafiyya
in Khurāsān and Transoxiana, see Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early
Islamic Iran (Albany, NY: Persian Heritage Foundation, 1988), 27 et passim.
21 See Chapter 10 in this monograph; also, for example, Bernd Radtke, “The Concept of
Wilāya in Early Sufism”, in Classical Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi, ed.
Leonard Lewisohn (London, KNP, 1993): 483–96.
22 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 44–5; also Ebstein,
­“Spiritual Descendants of the Prophet”, in L’ésotérisme shi’ite: ses racines et ses pro-
longements = Shi’i esotericism; its roots and developments, 2016, 544.
23 See, for example, the end of the eighth question in Masāʾil ahl Sarakhs:
These are those who sit with God and remember Him; they are the delight of the
Messengers, peace be upon them, and the close family of Muḥammad (ahl bayt
Muḥammad), God’s prayer and blessing upon him. Thanks to them the earth is
sustained and rain falls (bihim taqūmu ‘l-arḍ wa-tamṭuru al-samāʾ). They are
forty men, whenever one of them dies, God prepares one to come in his place.
– Radtke’s edition (1992), 156 and my edition (in Masāʾil wa-rasāʾil, edited as part
of my PhD Dissertation, 1979), 45.
24 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, 1965; for the
above details, see “Avant-Propos”, VII.
25 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-Awliyāʾ in Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmiḏ,
ed. Brend Radtke (Beirut: Steiner, 1992), 1–134 (Arabic section).
26 See Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā al-Rāfiḍa, ed. A.S. Furat, Sharkiyat Mecmuasi, no. 6 (1966),
37–46.
27 Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine
of Ibn ʿArabī (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993), 26–40.
136   Schools and teachers
28 See Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints, 35–46; also, Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants of
the Prophet”, in L’ésotérisme shi’ite: ses racines et ses prolongements = Shi’i esoteri-
cism; its roots and developments, 2016, 539–71; note especially 543–51, where
Ebstein discusses al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī at some length and supplies quotes and trans-
lations of relevant source material. See also Elizabeth R. Alexandrin, Walāyah in the
Fāṭimid Ismāʿīlī Tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2017).
29 Al-Sulamī and Ibn Nujayd, Masāʼil wa-taʼwīlāt Ṣūfīyah, §230, 57.
30 I borrow this denomination from Christopher Melchert who, in his turn, follows
Marshal Hodgson; as noted by Melchert, this term for aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth “is a substitute
for the older ‘traditionalists’ … ‘Hadith’ plainly indicates what they recognized as the
chief source of religious authority alongside the Qurʾan”, see “The Piety of the
Hadith Folk”, 426.
31 During Ibn al-Faḍl’s lifetime, Balkh must have been under the rule of the Ṣaffārīs,
who upheld the Ḥanafī madhhab, whereas al-Tirmidhī’s ordeals took place during the
rule of the Ṭāhirids there.
32 For more information on Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl, see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya,
206–11; also Radtke, “Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien”, 546,
no. 43 (based on Faḍāʾil-i Balḫ).
33 Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, eds Sh. Al-Arnāʿūṭ and M.N. al-ʿArqasāwī
(Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risāla, 1413), Vol. 14, 523–5 (no. 298).
34 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 206.
35 With thanks to Adva Werker.
36 Al-Sulamī and Ibn Nujayd, Masāʼil wa-taʼwīlāt Ṣūfīyah, §230, 57.
37 See, for example, Wilferd Madelung, “The Early Murjiʾa in Khurāsān and Transoxa-
nia”, Der Islam 59 (1982), 32–9, especially 39; a somewhat different understanding
emerges from Madelung, “The Two Factions of Sunnism: Ḥanafism and Shafiʿism”, in
Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 1988, 26–38, especially 26; see also Malamud,
“The Politics of Heresy in Medieval Khurasan: The Karramiyya in Nishapur”, Iranian
Studies 27 (1994): 37–51. For a general orientation on the Ṭāhirids, Ṣaffārids and
Sāmānids, see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Iranian History/The Indigenous Dynasties:
The Tahirids, the Samanids and the Saffarids.
38 The letters were included in my PhD dissertation, based on MS. Leipzig 212 ff., ff.
15b–17b and ff. 66a–68b – see Sara Sviri (Burg), “The Mystical Psychology of
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī”, thesis submitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy (Tel
Aviv : Tel Aviv University: 1979) (in Hebrew and Arabic), Vol. 2, 77–82. The first of
these letters has been published by M.I. al-Juyūshī in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
al-Masāʾil al-maknūna (Cairo: Dār al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 1980), 71–6.
Part III
Polarity
7 Between fear and hope
Coincidence of opposites
in Islamic mysticism1

Introduction – comparative considerations

How to reconcile God’s infinite goodness with the experiential awareness of the
negative, not to say evil, aspects of existence? This has been a major conundrum
in monotheistic religions. A religious system which, by definition, views all that
exists – whether good or evil – as emerging from and dependent on One,
Supreme, Omnipotent, Being and advocates a total reliance on the benevolence
of this Supreme Being, such a religious system, at some point or at one of its
manifestations, cannot avoid pondering this conundrum and developing methods
by which to explain and justify it. The solution adopted by dualistic systems,
according to which a clear distinction is drawn between two realms of light and
darkness, was rejected by the dogmatic, philosophical and mystical planes of
monotheisms. Within their pragmatic and ethical planes, however, such a dual
distinction could not be avoided, given that practice and ethics are founded upon
the very distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.2
In her stimulating book Le dualisme chez Platon, les gnostiques et les mani-
chéens,3 Simone Pétrement enumerates three main solutions to the problem of
reconciling God with Evil, within systems which would not maintain a total
fissure between the two. She describes as the most intriguing of them that of the
Pseudo-Clementines and other Gnostic systems. According to this solution,
which she also qualifies as “Hegelian” or “Heraclitean”, existence as a whole is
characterized by the opposition of contraries. These contraries, whether good or
evil, are ultimately contained within the Oneness of God, and are jointly subju-
gated to His supreme will.4 Pétrement also points to the crucial difference, which
is sometimes misunderstood, between this “theory of opposites” and dualism:
Dualists strive to maintain an absolute separation between the polar realms of
Good and Evil. Moreover, they regard ‘separation’ itself as good, and ‘amalga-
mation’ itself as bad. For the advocates of non-duality, conversely, it is precisely
the mutual completion and harmonization of the opposites which constitute ulti-
mately the unity of existence and of God.5
The solution referred to by S. Pétrement may be identified with the concept
of Coincidentia Oppositorum, coined and articulated by the fifteenth-century
Christian philosopher Nicolaus of Cusa:6 the coexistence and integration of
140   Polarity
polar opposites within the wholeness and oneness of God.7 It stands for, to quote
M. Eliade, “The union of contraries and the mystery of the totality”.8 In this
chapter, I set out to trace the occurrence and structure of such a view and its
related concepts and applications in Medieval Islam, particularly within Ṣūfism.
I will also search for and sample the occurrence of the “coincidence of opposites”
in pre-Islamic thought. These samples may be fruitful for further observations of
a comparative nature, and in order to gain insight – as is also suggested in other
chapters in this monograph – into the continuity and complexity of the background
upon which Islamic mysticism emerged.
Historical records kept indications for the existence of such an outlook in the
ancient Pythagorean tradition, which may, in turn, have influenced Heraclitus of
Ephesus (c.500 bc).9 According to the extensive study of G.E.R. Lloyd of early
Greek thought, “Opposites are, or are among, the principles or elements on
which the cosmological theories of […] pre-Socratic philosophers are based.”10
At the same time, he clarifies that “Heraclitus’s theory was exceptional in that he
particularly emphasized the interdependence or ‘unity’ of opposites”.11
Illuminating for our study is the description of this polarity in the religio-­
philosophical teaching of Philo of Alexandria (d. c.40 ce).12 Philo maintains
that although the Monad is unknowable, inaccessible and undifferentiated,
‘He’ is nevertheless conceived by His creation as an ever-active God, whose
all-invading activity is specified by His “many-named powers”. These powers
(dynameis) are classified by Philo as two opposing-complementary sets, which
he entitles “beneficent” versus “regal” (also “goodness” versus “authority”,
“creative” versus “regal”, “beneficent” versus “punitive”).13 Based on Philo’s
On the Cherubim 25–9,14 three typological principles can be inferred; they
bear relevance to the description of polarity in Islamic mysticism explored in
this chapter:

a The means whereby knowledge-of-things-divine may be obtained is

inspired revelation (Philo: “a God-possessed inner-voice”).
b The contents of this knowledge is the nature of the One, which is a union,
by the mediation of a “third power”, of dual complementary powers.
c A pragmatic lesson is inferred from this revelation: The human soul, in
response and analogy to God’s powers, should apply a dual attitude of
cheerful courage and reverent awe.15

From Philo’s Questions and Answers on Exodus ii, 62,16 a fourth principle may
be inferred:

d The two opposing-complementary powers are not equal: The creative power
(= goodness, beneficence, etc.) precedes by implication the royal power
(= sovereignty, authority, etc.).17

Several possible sources of influence have been suggested by Philonic scholars

to his theory of dual complementary powers: The charis versus diké of the
 Between fear and hope   141
Stoics; the Amesha Spenta of the Iranian Avesta;19 Hellenistic mysteries and
18

Hermetic literature;20 the apeiron versus peras (= the ‘unlimited’ versus

‘limit’) of Plato.21 Yet, it was shown by A. Marmorstein,22 accepted by
H.A. Wolfson23 and confirmed by E.E. Urbach,24 that Philo owes this concept
mainly to early Jewish Rabbinical tradition, according to which God
­dominates the world by means of two attributes (middōth): Mercy (ḥesed,
raḥamīm) versus Judgement (dīn, ṣedeq).25 The ethical analogy that Philo
draws between God’s dual attributes and man’s dual attitudes of love and fear
in his worship seems also to be inspired by the tradition of the Jewish Sages of
the pre-Christian era.26
Indeed, trying to find one’s way in the highly complex and richly speculative
pathways of Late Antiquity, one becomes aware of the resilience, dynamism and
fecundity of this mystically inclined, monistically flavoured outlook that views
God as a Coincidentia Oppositorum.27 Such a vision of God may have helped
monotheistic religions to accept binarity within the divine oneness. This was espe-
cially significant for Islam, which had to face the menace of strict dualistic reli-
gions referred to as thanawiyya and majūsiyya. Since its nascence, Islam had been
exposed to the imminent danger of dualistic influence, whether Zoroastrian or
Manichean. However, while denying any shade or nuance of polytheism (shirk),
Islam, too, had to struggle with aligning ‘Mercy’ and ‘Judgement’, ‘Good’ and
‘Evil’, ‘God’ and ‘Satan’. Duality, or binarity, was not done away with and had
been vehemently and incessantly contested in doctrines and dogmas; but, by
envisaging God as a union of opposites transcending duality, polarity could be
interwoven into the fabric of the monotheistic vision of a Supreme Being, essen-
tially benevolent and wise, yet forceful, grand and majestic. Thus, in certain
Islamic strata, mainly those mystically inclined, speculations and solutions of the
synthesizing–harmonizing type had been construed and adopted from early on.28
The prevalence and structure of binarity in classical Ṣūfism is illustrated by the
prolific occurrence in Ṣūfī literature of linguistic pairs of opposites (aḍdād), many
of them rhyming for rhetorical effect.29 This feature of Ṣūfī literature is so
common and typical that no one attempting to tackle Ṣūfī texts can help noticing
it. I am referring to such pairs as fanāʾ versus baqāʾ; waṣl versus faṣl; qabḍ versus
basṭ; jamʿ versus farq (or tafriqa); ṣabr versus shukr; ṣaḥw versus sukr; talwīn
versus tamkīn; qurb versus buʿd etc.30 These and other pairs are considered by
Ṣūfīs part and parcel of their technical terms (iṣṭilāḥāt, alfāẓ).31 Referring to the
‘stages’ (maqāmāt) and ‘states’ (aḥwāl) that the Ṣūfī undergoes in his quest for
God, these terms reflect the analogy of human and divine polarity of attributes.
The polarity of God’s attributes is articulated also in clusters of pairs of opposites
such as ʿadl versus faḍl; jalāl versus jamāl; ʿaẓama versus raḥma; qahr versus
luṭf; ʿizza versus minna; ʿadhāb versus ʿiqāb; etc.32 Mapping the relationship and
analogy of the two clusters – namely, how, in the context of the coincidentia
oppositorum, do man’s and God’s attributes reflect each other and what can be
drawn from such reflection concerning man’s transformational journey – these
are the foci of this chapter. At the outset, I consider the Qurʾānic seeds from which
the concept of the unity of opposites seems to have germinated.33
142   Polarity
Elements of polarity in the Qurʾān
In the verses of the Qurʾān, we find the first Islamic examples of pairs of oppos-
ites referring either to God’s power or to man’s attitude towards God. There are
several such pairs, occurring mainly in verbal structures rather than in nominal
concepts:

1 Fear versus hope (kh-w-f/ḥ-dh-r versus r-j-w/ṭ-m-ʿ)

2 Chastisement versus mercy (ʿa-dh-b versus r-ḥ-m)
3 Awe versus yearning (r-h-b versus r-gh-b)
4 Contraction versus expansion (q-b-ḍ versus b-s-ṭ)
5 Perseverance versus thankfulness (ṣ-b-r versus sh-k-r)
6 Annihilation versus persistence ( f-n-y versus b-q-y)
7 Effacing versus establishing (m-ḥ-w versus th-b-t)
8 Outward versus inward (ẓ-h-r versus b-ṭ-n)

The two pairs heading this list come sometimes jointly. Thus, Q. 17:57: “They
hope for His mercy and fear His chastisement” (referring to the idols who “are
themselves seeking the means to come to their Lord”).34 In Q. 39:9, the follow-
ing variant occurs: “[… he who is obedient …] being afraid of the world to
come and hoping for the mercy of his Lord”. The pair chastisement versus
mercy occurs also in Q. 17:54: “Your Lord knows you very well; if He will, He
will have mercy on you, or, if He will, He will chastise you”. The expression
khawf  an wa-ṭamaʿan occurs in four sūras (Q. 7:56; 13:12; 30:24; 32:16) and is
variably translated “fearfully – eagerly”, “for fear and hope”, “in fear and
hope”. The expression raghaban wa-rahaban (“out of yearning and awe”) in
Q. 21:90 refers to Zakariyyāʾ, the father of Yaḥyā (= John the Baptist) and his
wife; it denotes the double aspect of sincere faith and complete worship.35 An
interesting example of a double pair occurs in Q. 57:13, where the hypocrites
(al-munāfiqūn) are spoken of: “And a wall shall be set up between them
[= between the believers and the hypocrites], having a door in the inward
whereof is mercy, and against the outward thereof is chastisement.”36 The
­predominance of God’s mercy over God’s chastisement occurs in Q. 7:156:
“My chastisement – I smite with it whom I will; and My mercy embraces all
things …” (wa-raḥmatī wasiʿat kulla shayʾin). This verse further relates to God’s
“prescribing” His mercy for “those who are Godfearing”. In the same manner
God speaks about prescribing mercy for Himself in Q. 6:54: “Your Lord has
prescribed for Himself mercy. Whosoever of you does evil in ­ignorance, and
thereafter repents and makes amends, He is All-Forgiving,
­All-Compassionate”. These Qurʾānic references to God’s mercy had interesting
developments in Islamic religious literature. The complementary pair of oppos-
ites ‘contraction/expansion’ (qabḍ/basṭ) is attested in Q. 2:245, which Arberry
translates as: “[…] God grasps ( yaqbiḍu) and outspreads (wa-yabsuṭu).”37 The
pair maḥw versus ithbāt38 has its origin in Q. 13:39: “God effaces ( yamḥū) and
He establishes (wa-yuthbitu) whatsoever He will …” The polar pair perseverance
 Between fear and hope   143
(ṣabr) [in the face of ill fortune] and gratitude (shukr) [in the face of good
­fortune] may have stemmed from the expression “for every man enduring,
thankful (li-kulli sabbārin shakkūrin)” occurring in Q. 14:5; 31:31; 34:19; 42:33.
Lastly, one of the most widespread and much-discussed pairs in Ṣūfī literature,
annihilation ( fanāʾ) versus persistence (baqāʾ), is attested in the often recited
verses 55:26–27: “All that dwells upon the earth is perishing, yet still abides
the face of thy Lord, majestic, splendid (kullu man ʿalayhā fānin, wa-yabqā
wajhu rabbika dhū ‘l-jalāl wa ‘l-ikrām)”.

Fear and hope

In Ṣūfī literature, one of the most prevalent of the polar pairs is fear and hope (khawf
wa-rajāʾ). This vital pair links the Ṣūfī system with the Qurʾānic text and the Islamic
tradition at large,39 as well as with the field of Arabic linguistics concerning anto-
nyms (aḍdād, ṭibāq).40 From a wider perspective, as discussed in the introduction to
this chapter, it is here that we can see a reflection of an outlook that had been current
in Late Antiquity among different religious circles. Parsing the structural relationship
between the components of this pivotal pair with the help of Ṣūfī texts brings out the
harmonistic outlook typical also to other pairs of opposites.41
Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (165/781–243/837),42 renowned for his systematic
delving into the psychology of inner worship – what he named “the actions of
the hearts (aʿmāl al-qulūb)” – devoted many pages to the representation of fear
and hope. He is perhaps the first author to have defined and described in a pano-
ramic manner the psychological states experienced in the quest for God’s nearness.
The polar states of fear and hope signify – for him, as well as for the ensuing
Ṣūfī tradition at large – the fluctuation of the sincere believer between states of
anxiety and expectation, when his awareness of the message contained in the
Scriptures awakens and grows. In Questions Concerning the Acts of the Hearts
and the Organs (al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wal-jawāriḥ), he writes:

Fear and hope overtake his heart because of his intense awakening and
understanding of God’s words that he has been reading. At times his heart
seems to fly of joy ( faraḥan) due to the hope and expectation stirred within
him (li-mā hāja mina ‘l-amal wal-rajāʾ), that his Lord and Master may look
upon him with contentment and favour (bi-l-riḍā wal-ḥuẓwa); and at times
his heart seems to melt of grief (ghamman) and fly of dread and fright
( fazaʿan wa-ruʿban) when fear, caution, anxiety and awe are agitated within
him (ʿinda hayajān al-makhāfa wal-ḥadhar wal-ishfāq wal-bighḍa) that he
might end up in despair and failure (bi-l-ʾiyās wal-khayba). Thus he
[wavers] between these two states …43

Relationship
We have already glimpsed in the Qurʾānic verses the suggestion of a relationship
between these human psychological states and the divine polar attributes: Fear is
144   Polarity
caused by the realization of the wrathful, threatening divine attributes of God
whose punishment in the blazing fire of Hell awaits the sinner, while hope is
aroused by the contemplation of the loving, caring, benevolent God, whose
reward for the righteous and sincere believer awaits him in the luminosity of
Paradise.44 In the following extract, al-Muḥāsibī points explicitly to this
relationship:

God Almighty has frightened the disobedient with His wrath and punishment
(khawwafa al-ʿāṣīna bi-ghaḍabihi wa-ʿiqābihi) so that they may frighten
themselves with that by which He has frightened them, so that they may return
to Him in repentance ( fa-yatūbū ilayhi). Having abandoned their sins, God has
encouraged His repenting worshippers to hope, lest they despair and stick to
their sins … (rajjā … al-tāʾibīna min ʿibādihi … liʾallā yaqnuṭū fayuqīmū ʿalā
dhunūbihim). Therefore, the believer, who has a direct understanding of God’s
command, should place fear where God has placed it, so that when he means
to commit a sin he should frighten himself by that with which God has fright-
ened him, namely: with His punishment and wrath. And if his bad inclination
overtakes him […] he should scold his soul and tell her: God is forceful in His
retribution (shadīd al-ʿiqāb), there is no remedy to His wrath and no persever-
ance [helps] in His punishment (inna ghaḍabahu lā dawāʾa lahu wa-inna
ʿadhābahu lā ṣabra ʿalayhi) […] And when [the worshipper] means to repent
but despair confronts him ( fa-ʿāraḍahu al-qunūṭ) […] he should remind his
soul [of God’s] generosity and kindness (al-jūd wal-karam), and he should
encourage her to hope for His generosity, kindness, grace, gentleness, compas-
sion and mercy (wa-rajjāhā jūd Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla wa-karamahu wa-faḍlahu
wa-luṭfahu wa-raʾfatahu wa-raḥmatahu …).45

Evidently, beyond his ethical and pragmatic message, al-Muḥāsibī shares with
his readers a vivid vision: at the moment when the believer hovers between Hell
and Paradise, he experiences powerful emotions of fear and hope corresponding
to God’s polar aspects of wrath and mercy. There is a clear relationship between
the two. Nevertheless, there is a difference between al-Muḥāsibī’s pious vision
of such a relationship and the mystical vision of Ṣūfī literature. In fact, such a
message as his, albeit short of the colourful imaginings, is evinced also from the
repetitive admonitions of moralistic preachers (wuʿʿāẓ, quṣṣāṣ) in Early Islam.46
It can still be seen in the prolific and influential literature on taghrīb wa-tarhīb
(Encouragement and Intimidation) current today.47 These, however, lack the
mystical tone relating to the experiential occurrences on which Ṣūfī literature is
focused. A more poignant mystical presentation of these polar states vis-à-vis
the divine attributes can be read in the following passage from Kitāb al-Lumaʿ
by Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, the fourth/tenth-century Ṣūfī compiler:

We have referred to states of ‘fear and love’ (al-khawf wal-maḥabba) since

nearness [to God] implies two states (ḥāla ’l-qurb yaqtaḍī ḥālayni) … If, in
the [state of] nearness, his heart contemplates his Master’s majesty, reverence
 Between fear and hope   145
and might ( fa-in shāhada qalbuhu fī qurbihi min sayyidihi ʿaẓamatahu
­wa-haybatahu wa-qudratahu), this brings about [the experience of] fear,
shame and dread ( fa-yuʾaddīhi dhālika ilā ‘l-khawf wal-ḥayāʾ wal-wajal);
[but] if his heart contemplates his Master’s gentleness, primordial affection
and benevolence towards him and love (… luṭf sayyidihi wa-qadīm ʿaṭfihi
wa-iḥsānahu lahu wa-maḥabbatahu), this brings about [the experience of]
love, yearning, agitation, burning and weariness of persistence [in this life]
(addāhu dhālika ilā ‘l-maḥabba wal-shawq wal-qalaq wal-ḥarq wal-tabarrum
bil-baqāʾ).48

Two observations are due: First, the shift from hope to love has a distinct mys-
tical flavour and suggests a closer intimacy than hope; second, the relationship
between man’s polar states and God’s polar aspects is more direct – it stems not
only from an awakening to the inner understanding of the Scriptures, but from a
state of mystical contemplation. That this is not simply a diachronic shift, can be
seen from the literary evidence of al-Muḥāsibī’s contemporaries, such as Shaqīq
al-Balkhī (d. 194/810) or Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. c.280/890).49 Dhū al-Nūn
al-Miṣrī (d. 245/856) and his love verses should also be mentioned, as well as
the love poetry of Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawīya (d. 185/801) his predecessor: All spoke
with passion and devotion about the love of God and even about the yearning for
God (shawq).50 The concept of the love of God proved, however, daring and
provocative to some, and not a few Ṣūfīs of the third/ninth century were perse-
cuted for expounding just this idea.51

Equilibrium
The subtext underlying the above quotations implies a motion towards balance and
equilibrium between the extremities of the polar states. Indeed, descriptions and
didactic sayings concerning the fluctuating states recommend a reconciliation of the
opposites, an equal share for each one of them in the life and world of the seeker. A
tradition ascribed to the prophet Muḥammad is precisely in this vein: “Had the
believer’s fear been weighed against his hope, the two would have been balanced”.52
Variations on this theme were current in Ṣūfī circles. A few examples will
portray this approach:

1 Hope and fear are the two riding beasts of the believer (al-rajāʾ wal-khawf
matiyyatā al-muʾmin) – ascribed to Ḥasan al-Baṣri (d. 110/728).53
2 Fear and hope are the two wings of worship – it can fly only with both
­(al-khawf wal-rajāʾ jināḥā al-ʿamal, lā yaṭīru illā bihimā) – Abū ʿAlī
al-Rudhabārī (d. 322/933).54
3 Blend the sincere hope with the sincere fear (umzuj al-rajāʾ al-ṣādiq
­bil-khawf al-ṣādiq) – ascribed to Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṭākī (d. 220/853).55
4 Fear is the observer over worship and hope is the advocator of ordeals
­(al-khawf raqīb al-ʿamal wal-rajāʾ shāfiʿ al-miḥan) – ascribed to Dhū
al-Nūn (d. 245/860).56
146   Polarity
5 Fear and hope are two reins which guard against misconduct (al-khawf
­wal-rajāʾ zimāmāni yamnaʿāni min sūʾ al-adab) – ascribed to Abū Bakr
al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/932).57

The idea of balance and interdependence of the polar states was taken further by
Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996),58 a contemporary of al-Sarrāj and a forerunner
of al-Ghazālī. His large manual Qūt al-qulūb is a masterpiece of subtle psycho-
logical theory and ethical pragmatism. The sections on Fear and Hope in his
book left little for his successors to add. Al-Makkī goes as far as to suggest that
the two poles are not only mutually opposed, but that the one is the inner aspect
of the other, inherent within it, to the point of identification. He writes:

He who does not know fear, does not know hope […] Every worshipper’s
hope stems from his fear (rajāʾ kull ʿabd min ḥaythu khawfuhu) […] The
sign of true hope in the [heart of the] worshipper is fear being inherent in
his hope (wa-min ʿalāmāt ṣiḥḥat al-rajāʾ fī ‘l-ʿabd kawn al-khawf bāṭinan fī
rajāʾihi) […] This is why the Arabs named ‘fear’ –’hope’,59 since these are
two attributes which cannot be separated from one another (li-ʾannahumā
waṣfāni la yanfakku aḥaduhumā ʿan al-ākhar) […] The relationship
between fear and hope is like the relationship between day and night: since
the one is interlinked with the other, it is permissible to express duration by
any one of them. When day appears, night becomes contained within it by
the might of God, and when night appears, day hides by the wisdom of God
[…] This is also the essence of hope and fear: as the two wings are for the
bird, these are the two attributes of faith (li-ʾannahumā waṣfāni li ‘l-īmān
kal-jināḥayni li ‘l-ṭayr).60

Exaggeration
The desired equilibrium between the two components of the faithful’s attitude is
often hampered by exaggeration and excess of the one over the other. Being
‘spies of the hearts’ ( jawāsīs al-qulūb), Ṣūfī masters and writers never failed to
view human nature as conditioned by individual temperaments and tendencies,
which draw it towards one extreme or the other. God, too, observes human
natural tendencies and designs their lot accordingly. In a ‘divine’ tradition
(ḥadīth qudsī) God says:

I govern [the life of] my servants according to my knowledge of them (innī

udabbiru ʿibādī bi-ʿilmī). There are those whose hearts are strengthened
only with hope, nothing else benefits them (min ʿibādī man lā yaṣluḥuhu
illā ‘l-rajāʾ wa-lā yastaqīmu qalbuhu illā ʿalayhi …).61

Hence, ethical instructions, while cautioning men about their inclinations, must
be also considerate of human nature. Not just individuals; in social terms, too,
one observes disproportionate regards for either of the two poles. Thus, sectarianism,
 Between fear and hope   147
for example, is viewed as a manifestation of excessive inclination towards one
pole at the expense of its counterpart. Consider the following extract from Qūt
al-qulūb:

The third and worst instance of exaggerated fear is that it might become
so intense that it eradicates hope. [This occurs] when one is not aware of
the knowledge of qualities, such as generosity, kindness and benevolence,
which balance his station (… idhā lam yuwājih bi-ʿilm al-akhlāq mina
‘l-jūd wal-karam wa-‘l-iḥsān allatī tuʿaddilu al-maqām) […] This [exag-
gerated fear] results in despair of God’s Mercy […] Such is the case of the
Khāwarij […]62 as well as the Muʿtazila, who fled away from the way of
the Murjiʾa63; namely, [both groups] rejected the doctrine that the
believers in God’s Oneness [al-muwaḥḥidūn] will not enter the Fire of
Hell; rather, both groups argued that [God’s] threat will befall these non-
believers […] By this they have surpassed the boundaries of the Murjiʾa
and exceeded them, while the Murjiʾa have surpassed the boundaries of
ahl al-sunna and diminished them ( fa-jāwazū ḥadd al-murjiʾa wa-zādū
ʿalayhim kamā jāwazat al-murjiʾa ṭarīq ahl-al-sunna wa-qaṣarat
ʿanhum).64

This sectarian typology is summed up in a saying that al-Makkī attributes to

Makḥūl al-Nasafī (d. 318/930):65

He who worships God with fear is a ḥarūrī [= khārijī]; He who worships

God with hope is a murjiʾī; he who worships God with love is a zindīq66 and
he who worships God with hope and fear and love is a [true] believer [in the
Oneness of God].67

In interpreting the imbalance of theological sectarianism, another pair of oppos-

ites, in many ways parallel to khawf/rajāʾ, should be mentioned: ʿadl/
faḍl = justice versus goodness (see [nn 41 and 68]). The Muʿtazila, it will be
remembered, titled themselves ahl al-ʿadl wa ‘l-tawḥīd = The People of Justice
and Unity, and equated God’s Goodness with His Justice. Ṣūfīs, however, sim-
ilarly to Philo and other mystical trends in Late Antiquity, saw ‘justice’ (ʿadl) as
denoting the stern, judging, awe-inspiring aspect of God, whereas ‘grace’ or
‘mercy’ ( faḍl, raḥma) they saw as denoting God’s loving and compassionate
aspect.68
Naturally, Ṣūfī authors focus on the excess of fear or hope within the circles
of their own disciples and followers. Disproportionate attraction to either the one
pole or the other signals to the teachers that the disciple’s personality (nafs, ego)
is too one-pointed and has not yet reached a state of equilibrium. Thus, Abū
ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī (d. 298),69 in a biographical note, relates how in his youth he
used to be a disciple of Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh (d. 258)70 in their hometown of Rayy.
But at some point, he decided to leave Yaḥyā and join Shāh Shujāʿ al-Kirmānī
(d. 300).71 “Shāh Shujāʿ, however, would not admit me to his group,” Abū
148   Polarity
ʿUthmān tells. “ ‘You have been nursed’, he said, ‘upon the doctrine of hope
(rajāʾ), on which Yaḥyā takes his stand. No one who has imbibed this doctrine
can tread the path of purgation, because a mechanical belief in hope produces
indolence’ ”.72
Time and again Ṣūfī disciples are warned against indulging in one pole of
emotions at the expense of its opposite. “Whoever knows God by means of love
without fear” – al-Makkī quotes ‘one of the sages’:73

perishes of [over-] expansion and conceit (halaka bi’l-basṭ wa ‘l-idlāl); and

whoever knows Him by means of fear without love is separated from Him
by remoteness and alienation (inqaṭaʿa ʿanhu bi-‘l-buʿd wa ‘l-istīḥāsh); and
whoever knows God by means of both love and fear, God loves him and
draws him near and teaches him and makes him firm (aḥabbahu ‘llāh fa-
qarrabahu wa-ʿallamahu wa-makkanahu).74

Since excess and disharmony are considered an illness, the appropriate thera-
peutic method would be to prescribe for each state of excess its antidote. This is
indeed the quasi-medical metaphoric language of al-Ghazālī who writes:

Fear and hope are medications for the ailing hearts. Their benefit is in pro-
portion with the prevailing illness: if the predominant illness of the heart
is complacency in the face of God’s craftiness and delusion concerning
this, then fear is best ( fa-in kāna ‘l-ghālib ʿalā ‘l-qalb dāʾ al-amn min
makr Allāh taʿālā wa ‘l-ightirār bihi fa ‘l-khawf afḍal); and if its predom-
inant illness is despair and despondency of God’s mercy, then hope is best
(wa-in kāna ‘l-aghlab huwa ‘l-iyās wa ‘l-qunūṭ min raḥmati ‘llāh fa-‘l-
rajāʾ afḍal) …75 This is why God has joined both of them in describing
those whom He praised, saying: “They call their Lord out of fear and
love” (Q. 21:90); and he also said: “They call us with love and fear”
(Q. 30:24, 32:16).76

Ṣūfī treatises thus expound clearly the need for a ‘coincidence of opposites’, as
is summed up in the words of al-Ghazālī in his Iḥyāʾ:

It is therefore inevitable that the essence and merit of these two [states] be
explained [alongside] the way of attaining the union between them despite
their mutual opposition and resistance ( fa-lā budda idhan min bayān
ḥaqīqatihimā wa-faḍīlatihimā wa-sabīl al-tawaṣṣul ilā ‘l-jamʿ baynahumā
maʿa taḍāddihimā wa-taʿānudihimā).77

But alongside the quest for equilibrium and reconciliation of the opposites,
another vision can be discerned in Ṣūfī discourse on polarity and opposites, a
vision which, albeit sympathetic to the call for harmonization and balance,
articulates a higher vista, a wider perspective, of both the Divine aspects and
their corresponding human states.
 Between fear and hope   149
Predominance of mercy over justice – comparative
associations78
In the Introduction to this chapter, I have referred to Philo’s assertion that, out of
a deep contemplative exploration of God’s polar aspects of majesty and sover-
eignty vis-à-vis His mercy and goodness, the realization arises that, essentially
and in principio, it is divine Mercy that precedes and predominates divine
Power.79 Rabbinic thought offers a similar awareness: Although both the attribute
of ‘Judgement’ (middath ha-dīn) and the attribute of ‘Mercy’ (middath
ha-raḥamīm) are “necessary for the governance of the world”,80 without the pre-
dominance of the latter over the former the world could not be created,81 nor
could it prevail.82 The notion of a constant tension between these two aspects
within God was construed in a dramatic passage in the Babylonian Talmud as
God’s prayer. Addressing Himself, God prays: “May it be My will that My
mercy suppresses My anger …”.83 This extraordinary tradition has found its way
also to Islamic sources.
That God’s mercy includes all that exists, is borne out by a Qurʾānic verse.
Q. 7:156 reads: “wa-raḥmatī wasiʿat kulla shayʾin – “My mercy encompasses
everything”. This idea is widely represented in the Ḥadīth literature, where tradi-
tions, narrated in God’s own voice, record the contents of God’s vow to always
keep His mercy predominating over His wrath. Ḥadīth collections have
­preserved many variants of that divine tradition (ḥadīth qudsī), in which God
pronounces: “Your Lord had written with His Own Hand, prescribing upon
Himself, before creating Creation: May My mercy precede My anger! (raḥmatī
sabaqat/tasbiqu/taghlibu ghaḍabī)”.84 Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150/767),85 an
early Qurʾān commentator of the second/eighth century, known – and in some
circles notorious86 – for his borrowings from Jewish and Christian sources,
­supplies a contextual narrative to God’s remarkable pronouncement. Concerning
the myth of the creation of Adam, he describes how the reluctant ‘spirit’ (al-rūḥ)
was forced by God’s command to enter Adam’s lifeless body.87 Descending
through the cavity of the body, the spirit reached the feet and could not find an
outlet. It turned back and started ascending until it reached Adam’s nostrils,
whence it found an opening and was thus released. At that moment, Adam
sneezed and said: “Praise be to God (al-ḥamdu li-’llāh)”. To these first words of
Adam, God responded saying: “May God have mercy upon you ( yarḥamuka
’llāh)”. Since these were the first words addressed by God to Adam, it was
established, Muqātil remarks, that God’s Mercy precedes His Anger.88
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī quotes in his Taḥsīl naẓāʾir al-qurʾān a “Jewish”
­tradition, related by Ḥasan al-Baṣri. According to this tradition, the Children of
Israel keep asking Moses whether God prays. Moses is reluctant to answer until
he is commanded by God to do so. “Tell them” – God instructs Moses – “God
does pray, and His prayer is: May My mercy precede My anger”.89
When the theme of the predominance of mercy is explored in comparative
terms, it transpires that as early as the first half of the second/eighth century, and
possibly even earlier, Muslim commentators and traditionists expounded
150   Polarity
Qurʾānic verses referring to God’s mercy and punishment with material echoing
late antique sources. With the Philonic, Rabbinic and traditional Islamic notions
in mind, let us now consider the following passage from al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ:

If one looks into the source (maṭlaʿ) of fear and hope, [one is bound to con-
clude] that hope is more excellent ( fa ‘l-rajāʾ afḍal), since it draws water
from the Sea of Mercy (li-ʾannahu mustaqan min baḥr al-raḥma), [whereas]
fear draws from the Sea of Anger (wa-mustaqā ‘l-khawf min baḥr
al-ghaḍab). He who contemplates among God’s attributes those which
imply gentleness and mercy (wa-man lāḥaẓa min ṣifāt Allāh ma yaqtaḍī ‘l
luṭf wa ‘l-raḥma), [the state of] love is predominant in him (kānat
al-maḥabba ʿalayhi aghlab), and there is no stage beyond love. As for fear,
its motivation is the turning of attention towards the attributes which imply
violence (wa-ammā ‘l-khawf fa-mustanaduhu ‘l-iltifāt ilā ‘l-ṣifāt allatī
taqtaḍī ‘l-ʿunf) and love never blends with it in the same way that it blends
with hope ( falā tumāzijuhu ‘l-maḥabba mumāzajatahā li-‘l-rajāʾ).90

The analogy in al-Ghazālī’s passage between man’s polar states of fear and
hope-love and God’s polar aspects of anger and mercy is reminiscent not only of
Philo and the Rabbinic lore, but also of al-Sarrāj’s description cited above
(see note 48): The same relations are established between anger/violence/fear on
the one hand, and mercy/gentleness/love/hope on the other. Al-Ghazālī,
however, adds the idea of the predominance of mercy over anger, and he does so
by using a metaphor: On the scales of existence, the pan attached to mercy
­outweighs that attached to anger.

The polar ladder of ascent

One of the best-known features of Ṣūfism is its vision of the mystical path as an
ascending road, or ladder, along which several stations, or stages (maqāmāt), are
situated. Each station designates a psychological obstacle, stemming from phys-
ical, temperamental or other ego-based conditionings, which the wayfarer (= al
sayyār) has to overcome in order to achieve the ethical refinement (ṣafāʾ) neces-
sary for proceeding; traversing the maqāmāt is a prerequisite for a sincere spir-
itual life.91 Lists and descriptions of maqāmāt differ as regards their number,
order and definition.92 Alongside this ‘spatial’ aspect of the way, Ṣūfī manuals
distinguish also another type of transformative events, a vertical one, denoting
the mystical aspect of the journey. Events of this type are short, ephemeral,
intense and spontaneous. Whereas the maqāmāt are considered ‘gains’
(makāsib), these events, which Ṣūfīs name aḥwāl = ‘states’ – suggesting an ety-
mological link with the root ḥ-w-l that signifies change and transformation – are
considered divine gifts (mawāhib).93
In Ṣūfī manuals, the maqāmāt and aḥwāl are often listed neatly in separate
groups. Al-Sarrāj, for example, after very short introductions, writes simply:
“The ‘stations’, they are like repentance (tawba), God-fearing (waraʿ), abstention
 Between fear and hope   151
(zuhd), poverty ( faqr), perseverance (ṣabr), contentment (riḍā), reliance
­(tawakkul).”94 And then: “[The aḥwāl], they are like observation (murāqaba),
nearness (qurb), love (maḥabba), fear (khawf), hope (rajāʾ), longing (shawq),
intimacy (uns), serenity (ṭumʾanīna), witnessing (mushāhada), certitude ( yaqīn)
etc. (wa-ghayru dhālika)”.95 But behind the neat nominal lists of consecutive
maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl, a richer picture inheres. Scrutinizing the relevant chapters
in the Ṣūfī literature, one becomes aware of the complex process of the wayfarer’s
progress. Indeed, progress is attained through effort (mujāhada, riyāḍa), but it
also derives from the inner activity of contemplation (naẓar, mushāhada,
murāqaba, ruʾyā). From contemplation, an array of mystical revelations ensue
and, for the sincere contemplator, these revelations open up the vistas of the
divine attributes and aspects (ṣifāt, asmāʾ, anwār, mulk).96 Since God reveals
Himself at times by attributes of beauty and compassion (ṣifāt al-luṭf, al-raḥma,
al-faḍl = al-ṣifāt al-jamāliyya), and at times by attributes of majesty and power
(ṣifāt al-qahr, al-ghaḍab, al-ʿadl = al-ṣifāt al-jalālīya)97 – the worshipper is
­constantly thrown between extreme emotional poles, similar to, but more intense
than, fear and hope. This is the bipolarity of the Ṣūfīs.
Hence, to the nominal lists of stations and states reproduced from the Ṣūfī
manuals,98 the following observation should be appended: the mystical progress
and ascent on the spiritual ladder is qualified by a dynamic fluctuation between
opposing sets of emotions, experiences and revelations. The higher the stage
reached, the more extreme the polarity becomes. In the final resort, however, the
goal of the ascent is not to perpetuate this dynamic polarity ad infinitum, but to
transcend it. The rough experiences of what appear as negative revelations →
emotions are designed, in fact, to destroy the ego-based properties in man;
whereas, simultaneously, the gifts and favours of what appear as positive
­revelations → emotions, nourish in him the seeds of a non-attached spiritual
being. The way, therefore, is both a process of ‘shedding off’ and of ‘putting on’,
when, at the point of arrival (bulūgh, wuṣūl), a complete state of collectedness
( jamʿ) and equilibrium (istiqāma) is established, which is the reflection of, or
the merging in, the Divine Unity.99
In his Epistle (al-Risāla), al-Qushayrī spreads in front of his disciples’ eyes
a vast panorama of polar pairs. They are grouped in a chapter titled “On the
Explanation of Terms (alfāẓ) Circulating Within this Group” (al-ṭāʾifa, i.e. the
Ṣūfīs). At the end of the section concerning ḥāl (= state), al-Qushayrī writes:
“The worshipper is always [in the process of] ascension in his states …
( fa ‘l-ʿabd abadan fī irtiqāʾ aḥwālihi)”. He then proceeds to enumerate and
explain the following pairs: al-qabḍ wa’l-basṭ (contraction and expansion), al-
hayba wa’l-uns (awe and intimacy), al-jamʿ wa’l-farq (collectedness and
dispersion), al-fanāʾ wa’l-baqāʾ (annihilation and permanence), al-ghayba wal-
huḍūr (absence and presence), al-ṣaḥw wa’l-sukr (sobriety and intoxication),
al-maḥw wa’l-ithbāt (obliteration and affirmation), al-satr wa’l-tajallī (conceal-
ment and exposure), al-talwīn wa ‘l-tamkīn (variegation and consolidation)
and, finally, al-qurb wa ‘l-buʿd (nearness and remoteness).100 Before introduc-
ing the first pair in his list, al-Qushayrī writes: “Pertaining to ḥāl is
152   Polarity
‘­ contraction’ and ‘expansion’ (al-qabḍ wa ‘l-basṭ), which are two states
(ḥālatāni) that occur after the worshipper has ascended the state (ḥāl) of ‘fear
and hope’ ”. Then, introducing the next pair al-Qushayrī explains: ‘intimacy
and awe’ (al-uns wa ’l-hayba): “These two are above contraction and expan-
sion”. The image of a ladder of ascension is thus clear and evident. Concerning
the polar pair qabḍ wa-basṭ, al-Qushayrī writes:

‘Contraction’ for the ‘knower’ (al-ʿārif) is like ‘fear’ for the ‘novice’
(al-mustaʾnif); and ‘expansion’ for the knower is like ‘hope’ for the novice
[…] He who experiences fear and hope – during these two states his heart is
attached to the future (ājilihi); whereas he who experiences contraction and
expansion is the captive of the ‘moment’ by a spiritual event that has over-
taken him in the present (akhīdh waqtihi bi-wārid ghalaba ʿalayhi fī ʿājilihi)
[…] It may happen that [the mystic] experiences the contraction of his heart
without any apparent reason. In this case he should surrender until the
‘moment’ passes away […] If he surrenders to the control of the moment,
the contraction will soon vanish, as it is said by God, praised be He: “and
God contracts and expands” Q. 2:245 (translation S.S.).101

Al-Qushayrī then goes on to describe the following pair, al-uns wa ‘l hayba

(awe and intimacy):

These [two states] are above contraction and expansion; in the same manner
that contraction is above the rank (rutba) of fear, and expansion is above the
degree (manzila) of hope, so is awe higher (aʿlā) than contraction and
intimacy more perfect (atamm) than expansion …102

Schematically, al-Qushayrī’s ladder of ascent can be thus be depicted as below

(Figure 7.1).

AWE INTIMACY

CONTRACTION EXPANSION

FEAR HOPE

Figure 7.1  Scheme of polar states.

 Between fear and hope   153
Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, in his Fawāʾiḥ (§§87–96), suggests a similar ladder,
adding to his description refined psychological perceptions concerning the
paradox of the coincidentia oppositorum (al-jamʿ bayna ‘l-ḍiddayni). Here is a
relevant passage which does not lack poetic intensity:

If one says: “It has been confirmed that it is possible to experience ‘fear and
hope’ in a single state […] but how is it with regards to ‘contraction and expan-
sion’, which are two opposites that do not blend (maʿa annahumā ḍiddāni lā
yajtamiʿāni)?” To this we answer: “[Indeed,] in the first stages of entering this
arena (maydān), the heart is at times expanded […] and at times contracted […]
This, however, is the stage (maqām) of ‘variegation’ (talwīn) in the arena of
contraction and expansion. But the one who has been established in it (lit.:
straightened, al-mustaqīm fīhi) is contracted-expanded [simultaneously] […]
they [al-mustaqīmūna] are contracted in their bodies as if fettered by chains
from the intensity of dignity (waqār), calmness (anāt) and remembrance
(tidhkār), and [at the same time they are] expanded in their hearts and spirits
like the expansion of the fine skin ( fūf) when the winds blow.”103

The dynamic fluctuation from state to state, often referred to in Ṣūfī parlance as
‘variegation’ (talwīn), is also paired; it’s polar mate is the sought for state of ‘con-
solidation’ (tamkīn). Tamkīn denotes, in fact, the reconciliation of the opposites,
the merging of the polar pairs in a unity of opposites, a coincidentia oppositorum.
Yet this coincidentia is also a stage on the ladder of ascent, a transitory phase of
rest and stabilization before another, more violent wave of emotions and revela-
tions attacks the wayfarer and throws him again from one pole to the other. Thus,
not only is each stage on the ladder qualified by its related pole, the pattern of the
whole journey is of constant change and flux between movement and rest.
In describing the spiritual ascent, Kubrā combines two images: The image of
the two-winged bird whose flight depends on the balance between its wings, and
the image of human growth from infant (ṭifl) – to mature man (kahl) – to old
man (shaykh). In this triple-phased image, the first phase of fear-hope correlates
with the infant; the second phase of contraction-expansion correlates with the
mature man (§87); and the third stage of awe-intimacy correlates with the old
man. Yet in his analysis, Kubrā does not stop at the stage of awe-intimacy. The
ascent of the shaykh – the old man, the master, the friend of God – continues.
Here is Kubrā’s powerful description of the shaykh’s experience at the apex,
struggling between the polar pair of talwīn and tamkīn:

The Sheikh too, by these two wings, [fluctuates] between deviation from the
straight path and steadfastness (al-ḥayd ʿan al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm wa
‘l-istiqāma) – this is his [double-faceted state of] ‘variegation-consolidation’
(talwīnuhu wa-tamkīnuhu). His variegation [means] that at times the attrib-
utes of beauty (ṣifāt al-jamāl) are revealed to him, namely [the attributes of]
grace ( faḍl), mercy (raḥma), favour (luṭf) and kindness (karam), and then
he is immersed in intimacy ( fa-yakūnu mustaghriqan fi ‘l-uns); and at times
154   Polarity
the attributes of majesty (ṣifāt al-jalāl) are revealed to him, namely [the
attributes of] power (qudra), magnificence (ʿaẓama), pride (kibriyāʾ), might
(ʿizza), assault (saṭwa), and intensity of fierceness (shiddat al-baṭsh); then
he is immersed in awe ( fi ‘l-hayba) – [all these are his talwīn]. At other
times the [two] attributes blend together and then he contemplates in [the
state of] ‘intimacy-awe’ – [and this is his state of tamkīn] …104

Thus, an apex is indicated.105 But even at this apex Kubrā’s description does not
end (§96). He writes:

And from [the stage of] ‘awe and intimacy’ he [= the shaykh] ascends to the
double-winged [stage] of ‘love and knowledge’ (al-maḥabba wa ‘l-maʿrifa)
and [then] to the double-winged [stage] of ‘annihilation and permanence’
(al-fanā’ wal-baqāʾ).106

Further than that, Kubrā’s lines imply that at such mystical altitudes, conceptual or
imagination-based differentiations no longer abide, therefore there is no point in
drawing further the symbolical ladder, or in pursuing further the growth and trans-
formation of the child–man–old man. The two-winged bird, which symbolized the
“unity of contradictory states”, is now abandoned. What remains is pure love:

When the lover is annihilated in love, his love becomes one with the love of
the Beloved, and then there is no bird and no wing, and his flight and love
to God are by God’s love to him, and not to Him by him ( fa-yakūnu
ṭayarānuhu wa-maḥabbatuhu li ‘l-ḥaqq bi-maḥabbat al-ḥaqq lahu wa-lā
lahu bihi).107

Polarity and oneness

Following the descriptions of mystical states and their potent polarity, the follow-
ing understanding grows: Ṣūfī literature bears witness to the conviction that one
must never attach oneself to any state at all. Mystical states, although they may
induce revelations of divine manifestations and deep insights, are nevertheless also
a hindrance for reaching a refined undifferentiated experience of oneness. In other
words, the Ṣūfī aims neither to abide in any state, nor to regard his powerful expe-
riential fluctuations between the poles as the ultimate goal of his journey. Rather,
in the process, the Ṣūfī may become immersed in an undifferentiated state of one-
ness in which all traces of duality disappear. Although such an experiential phe-
nomenon may raise the question of the validity of the recording of it – since the
duality of ‘experience’ and ‘an experiencing one’ also disappears – the possibility
is nevertheless intimated in sayings such as the following:

a “Fear is a veil between God and man; when ‘Truth’ [al-Ḥaqq = God] reveals
Himself in the depth of hearts, no room is left in them for either hope or
fear” (attributed to Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī).108
 Between fear and hope   155
b “The people of truth (ahl-al-ḥaqīqa) see that the station[s] of ‘awe and
intimacy’, albeit lofty, are failing, since they imply man’s modification
(taghayyur). In their states, the people of stability (ahl al-tamkīn) have sur-
passed any modification, they [abide] in existence per se ( fī wujūd al-ʿayn),
[where] there is no awe, no intimacy, no knowledge and no perception (lā
ʿilma wa-lā ḥissa)”.109
c “The friend of God [al-walī] is characterized by having no fear, since fear is
the anticipation of a mishap [bound] to take place in the future, or of a
happiness [bound] to pass away any moment. The walī, however, is the son
of his moment (al-walī ibn waqtihi); he has no future; therefore, he has no
fear. In the same manner he has no hope, since hope is the expectation of
the occurrence of an agreeable [event], or the removal of an unpleasant one
[…] Likewise, he knows no sadness, because sadness pertains to time, and
he who abides in the luminosity of contentment ( f ī ḍiyā al-riḍā), how will
he know sadness? God said: ‘Surely God’s friends – no fear shall be on
them, neither shall they sorrow’ ” (Q. 10:62).110
d “Perfection of mystical knowledge (kamāl al-maʿrifa) […] [is attained]
when the dispersed become conjunct (idhā ijtamaʿat al-mutafarriqāt) and
the [diversity of] states and places becomes uniform (istawat), and percep-
tion of differentiation ceases (saqaṭat ruʾyat al-tamyīz)”.111

To a definition by Yūsuf ibn Ḥusayn (d. 304/916–7) of “the unity of the people

of realities” (tawḥīd ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq), al-Sarrāj adds the following remark:

e “If one asks what he [Yūsuf] means by ‘cessation of the opposition between
dread and desire (izālat muʿāraḍat al-rahba wal-raghba – a variant of
khawf wa-rajāʾ)’, these two being duties (wa-humā ḥaqqāni), one is to be
answered thus: Indeed these two are duties, and as such they remain in their
places; but the might of Oneness overpowers them (qaharahumā sulṭān
al-waḥdāniyya) as the might of the sun’s light overpowers the light of the
stars while they remain in their places”.112

This then is the literary evidence for the unity of opposites, for an unio mystica;
the Ṣūfī transcends all duality as he loses the power of discrimination between the
opposites. In the last resort, the coincidentia oppositorum refers not only to the
dynamism of integrating the diversities at each stage and station ( jamʿ
al-mutafarriqāt), but also to the experience at the point of arrival (wuṣūl) – beyond
time, change and relativities – from which all things are perceived as one:

[…] The mystic passes away ( fānin ʿan) from what belongs to himself and
persists (bāqin bi) through what belongs to God, while conversely, he per-
sists through what belongs to God and passes away from what belongs to
himself […] When he is concentrated (majmūʿ), he is also separated
(mufāraq) […] He is absent (ghāʾib) and intoxicated (sakrān) because the
power of discrimination has fallen, and in this sense all things become one
156   Polarity
to him (wa-maʿnā zawāl al-tamyīz ʿanhu … anna ’l-ashyāʾ tatawaḥḥadu
lahu … fa- idhā ṣārat al-ashyāʾ shay’an wāḥidan saqaṭa ‘l-tamyīz).113

Appendix
Polarity: historical and literary perspectives
The topic of polarity is referred to in many studies on Ṣūfism: in Hartmann on
al-Qushayrī’s (d. 465/1074) al-Risāla;114 in H. Ritter on Farīd ad-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d.
627/1229);115 in Nicholson on Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240)116 and ʿAbd al-Karīm
Jīlī (d. 815/1413);117 in F. Meier on Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618/1221),118 and on
Abū Saʿīd ibn Abī ‘l-Khayr (d. 440/1049);119 in H. Corbin on Kubrā120 and Ibn
al-ʿArabī;121 in A.M, Schimmel on Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273);122 and in
Sachiko Murata.123
These studies focus on later Ṣūfism, that is, mainly on the eleventh century
onwards. True, it was due to the synthesizing genius of Ibn al-ʿArabī, and later
of Jīlī, that such notions as the Divine Triad Jamāl–Jalāl–Kamāl, as well as the
related idea of al-insān kāmil (the Perfect, or Complete, Man) – he who acts as
the human reflection of this Triad – became a recurring theme in Ṣūfī literature.
Yet, this specific outlook, which may be labelled coincidentia oppositorum, had
been extant and creative in the writings of as early as the third/ninth-century
mystics. Not only can we adduce quotations from al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī
(d. 243/857), pertaining to the polarity of ‘fear–hope’ and its significance as a
harmonistic attitude towards God’s dialectical aspects;124 not only can we find
the pairs ʿadl–faḍl, fanāʾ–baqā’, ṣabr–shukr, ṣaḥw–sukr, qabḍ–basṭ, kawn–
bawn and others in the surviving works of ninth-century mystics such as
al-Kharrāz,125 al-Junayd,126 al-Ḥallāj,127 Sahl al-Tustarī128 and others. Beyond all
these early references, it is in the large corpus of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidh where this
structure embodies a central focus. Throughout his mystical speculations and
visions, concepts such as ḥaqq (truth), ṣidq (sincerity) mujāhadat al-nafs
­(exertion aiming at conquering the lower-soul), ḥikma (divine wisdom), ʿadl
( justice), qudra (divine might) and others are ‘located’ on the left-hand side of
the cosmic scheme, just as they were earlier in Gnosticism and later in
­Kabbala.129 They relate to the wrathful, judging aspect of God.130 At the same
time, concepts such as bahja ( joy), jamāl (beauty), maḥabba (love), uns
(intimacy), riḍwān (supreme divine contentment), raḥma (mercy) and others are
located on the right-hand side of the same scheme. The whole creation is thus
organized and established upon a polarity, which, in order to persist, is first in
need of balance between opposing phenomena, and ultimately calls for the
superiority of the benevolent aspect. Not only do such speculations refer to the
Divine aspects, they also constitute the foundation of al-Tirmidhī’s psycho-
logical system, namely, his typology of the awliyāʾ, the Friends of God, who
attain His nearness and collaborate with Him for the maintenance of Creation.
Those who are activated by ‘truth’, ‘sincerity’, ‘justice’ are the ṣādiqūn
(= al-mujtahidūn – those who strive and exert themselves in the way of right
 Between fear and hope   157
conduct); whereas those who have surpassed this stage and have been endowed
with divine ‘love’ and ‘compassion’, they are the ṣiddīqūn (= al-sābiqūn, the
foregoing, those who have precedence, the excellent ones).131 This typological
paradigm al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī applies also to the closest companions of the
Prophet: ʿUmar stands on the side of ‘truth’ and ‘law’, whereas Abū Bakr stands
on the side of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’. It also underlies the typological dicho-
tomy concerning nations and religions: banū Isrāʾīl (= Jews and Christians)
reflect in their religious attitude the aspect of bodily exertion, rigidness and fear,
whereas ummat Muḥammad (= Muslims) reflect total devotion of the heart, leni-
ency and tolerance (see also Chapter 11 in the monograph).
As for the progressive ascent on the road of purification and psychological
transformation, which will be discussed in Chapter 8, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī refers –
perhaps for the first time in Islamic mystical literature – to the alternating stages of
fear-hope/love, followed by contraction–expansion, leading to the superior double-
faced stage of awe–intimacy. Al-Tirmidhī also examines the need for a phase of
balance and stability (tamkīn, istiqāma, thabāt) in the follow-up of each polar
experience. This phase represents for him the integration of the poles and the
reconciliation between emotional states.132 The final stage on the ladder surpasses
duality and reflects the oneness of God; in his work it is symbolized by the Arabic
letter ‫( ا‬alīf), which graphically represents the straightness, non-deviation and unity
of all opposites within the source and beginning of all phenomena.133

Notes
   1  An earlier version of this chapter was published in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 9 (1987): 316–49.
   2 Concerning this question from a philosophical point of view, see the papers edited
by Baruch A. Brody, Readings in the Philosophy of Religion: An Analytic Approach
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974), especially the section “Arguments
Against His Existence”, 149–226.
   3 Simone Pétrement, Le dualisme chez Platon, les gnostiques et les manichéens (Paris:
Presses universitaires de France, 1947). For the elucidation of several points touched
upon in this chapter, I am indebted to the late R.J.Z. Werblowsky and to Shaul
Shaked. A seminar they held in 1983, jointly with Guy Stroumsa, was of great
stimulation and help in the consolidation of ideas discussed here. Pétrement’s book
was only one of my stimulating discoveries.
   4 Ibid., 205–6.
  5 Ibid., 206–7; cf. also 207, n. 101, where the “idea of the syzygie” in the Valentinian
Gnosis is referred to. For more on this idea, see Jeffrey B. Russell, The Devil, Per-
ception of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1977), 98–9.
   6 For an up-to-date bibliography on Cusanus, see C.L. Miller, “Cusanus, Nicolaus
[Nicolas of Cusa]”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 edn),
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/cusanus/; also The Cambridge
History of Later Medieval Philosophers, eds Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), 873–4; cf. S.H. Nasr, Knowledge and the
Sacred (New York: Crossroad Pub. Co., 1981), 56, n. 69.
   7 See K. Rohmann, “Nicholas of Cusa: His Idea of the Coincidence of Opposites and
the Concept of Unity in Unification Thought”, Journal of Unification Studies 3
158   Polarity
(1999–2000): 117–29; E. Zellinger, Cusanus-Konkordanz Unter Zugrundelegung
Der Philosophischen Und Der Bedeutendsten Theologischen Werke (Munich:
M. Hueber, 1960), 90/43 – 91/43. This idea has been studied intensively by modem
scholars with an inclination towards Jungian concepts: see, for example, Eranos
Jahrbuch 1967 devoted to “Polarilät des Lebens”, eds Adolf Portmann und Rudolf
Ritsema, Vol. 36 (Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1968); C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis:
an inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy, trans.
R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 104, 166–7; J. Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Meridian Books, 1970); Mircea
Eliade, “Mephistopheles and the Androgyne or Mystery of the Whole”, in The Two
and the One, trans. J.M. Cohen (London: Harvill, 1965), 78–123 (especially 81);
Mircea Eliade, “Prolegomenon to Religious Dualism: Dyads and Polarities”, in The
Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1969),
126–75 (especially 173ff.).
   8 Mircea Eliade, “Mephistopheles and the Androgyne”, 80.
   9 See Pétrement, Le dualisme chez Platon, 207; but cf. Kathleen Freeman, The
­Pre-Socratic Philosophers: a Companion to Diels, Fragment Der Vorsokratier
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), 82. For the idea under discussion see, for example,
Heraclitus’ fragments nos 8 and 51 in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic
Philosophers: a Complete translation of the Fragments in Diels Fragmente der
­Vorsokratiker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956), 25, 28 respectively.
  10 G.E.R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analog: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek
Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 16.
  11 Ibid., 17; see also 97ff., and note especially 99:
Heraclitus’ conception of the relationship between opposites is quite different
from that of the Pythagoreans in this that he repeatedly stresses not only the inter-
dependence of opposites … but also the constant war or strife between them. Yet
both philosophers have this in common, that they contain general doctrines which
depend on the recognition of an analogy or equivalence between the relationships
between pairs of opposites of many different sorts … (author’s emphasis).
  12 See H.A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christi-
anity and Islam, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), 3ff.;
Issak Heinemann, Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung: Kulturvergleichende
Untersuchungen Zu Philons Darstellung Der Jüdischen Gesetze (Breslau:
M.&H. Marcus, 1932); E. Bréhier, Les idées philosophiques el religieuses de Philon
d’Alexandrie (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1925); E.R. Goodenough, By
light, light; the Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1935); Roger Arnaldez, Claude Mondésert, and Jean Pouilloux,
Philon d’Alexandrie Lyon, 11–15 Septembre 1966 (Paris: Éditions du Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1967), 2–44. For further reading and updated
bibliography, see L. Carlos, “Philo of Alexandria”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2018 edn).
  13 See, for example, H.A. Wolfson, Philo, Vol. 1, 223ff.; Vol. 2, 135ff.; cf. D. Winston,
“Was Philo a Mystic?” in Studies in Jewish Mysticism, eds Josef Dan and
Frank Talmage (Cambridge, MA: Association for Jewish Studies, 1982), 15ff.;
E.R. Goodenough, By Light, Light, 24, Plates I and 29, Plate II.
  14 I am referring to Colson-Whitaker’s translation, Philo (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1929–1962), Vol. 2, 25ff.
  15 Ignaz Goldziher had noted the striking similarity between Philo’s dichotomy and
Islamic parallels. Islam distinguishes between divine attributes of Beauty (ṣifāt
jamāliyya) versus divine attributes of Majesty (ṣifāt jalāliyya) – cf. his Die Richtungen
der islamischen Koranauslegung (Leiden: Brill, 1920), 210ff. Cf. also Fritz Meier,
 Between fear and hope   159
Die Fawāʾiḥ al Ğamāl wa- fawātiḥ al-Ğalāl des Nağm ad-Dīn al-Kubrā (Wies-
baden: F. Steiner, 1957), 80ff.; also Roger Arnaldez’s essay “La dialectique des sen-
timents chez Philon”, in Philon d’Alexandrie (1967): 299–330, where he suggests an
analogy between the Islamic opposites (aḍdād) fear (khawf)/hope (rajāʾ) and Philo’s
phobos/elpis (ibid., 299). A link connecting Philo with Islamic religious speculations
may be circumstantially inferred from H.L. Goodhard and E.R. Goodenough’s
“General Bibliography of Philo Judaeus”, printed as an appendix to Goodenough’s
The Politics of Philo Judaeus: Practice and Theory (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1938): it tells us that a work ascribed to John of Damascus – The Sacred
Parallels – “contain[s] extracts from Philo” – see p. 142. Concerning the role played
by John of Damascus in the initiation of Islamic theology, see, for example, A.T.
Khoury, Polémique Byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972),
327, and the bibliography cited in n. 89; Daniel J. Sahas, John of Damascus on
Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 99–122. On another
instance of similarity between Philo and Muslim ideas, see G. von Grunebaum, “The
Sources of Islamic Civilization”, in Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and Cultural
Perspective (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976), Vol. 7, 31–2.
  16 I am referring to Ralph Marcus’ translation, Philo, Supplement II (London:
W. Heinemann, 1953), 108–9.
  17 Cf. E. Bréhier, Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d’Alexandrie
(Paris: Librairie Alphonse Piscard, 1908), 150.
  18 See ibid., 147ff.
  19 See ibid., 151, n. 6; cf. Goodenough, By Light Lights, 13.
  20 See Bréhier, Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d’Alexandrie, 42ff.
  21 See D. Winston, “Was Philo a Mystic?”, 17. This opposition is originally ascribed to
Pythagoras – see, for example, G.E.R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of
Argumentation in Early Greek Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1966), 35.
  22 Arthur Marmorstein, The Old Rabbinical Doctrine of God, Vol. 1 (London: Oxford
University Press, H. Milford, 1927), 43ff.
  23 Ibid., 224ff.
  24 Efraim Elimelech Urbach, The Sages – their Concepts and Belief (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1975), 452ff.
  25 See ibid., 448ff. See also Y. Liebes, “Middotav shel Elohim”, Tarbitz 70 (2001):
11ff., http://liebes.huji.ac.il/files/middot.pdf (in Hebrew); Shlomo Naeh, “Poterion
en cheiri kyriou: Philo and the Rabbis on the Powers of God and the Mixture in the
Cup”, Scripta Classica Israelica XVI (= Studies in Memory of Abraham Wasser-
stein, Vol. 2, eds H.M. Cotton, J.J. Price and D.J. Wasserstein) (Jerusalem, 1997),
91–101.
  26 See Urbach, The Sages, 400ff.; cf., however, Urbach’s reservation in 404ff. Cf. also
A.P. Hayman, “Rabbinical Judaism and the Problem of Evil”, Scottish Journal of
Theology 29 (1976): 465ff. On ‘love’ and ‘fear’ in pre- and early Christian-Judaism,
see also E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of
Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1977), 120–2; G.F. Moore, Judaism in
the First Centuries of the C.E: The Age of the Tannaim (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University, 1927), Vol. 2, 99ff. See Liebes, “Middotav shel Elohim”.
  27 Pertinent to this outlook is also the Gnostic conception of “pairs” – syzygie –
­especially in the Valentinian system – see, for example, Hans Jonas, The Gnostic
­Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity
(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958); R. Mcl. Wilson, The Gnostic Problem:
A Study of the Relations Between Hellenistic Judaism and the Gnostic Heresy
(London: A.R. Mowbray, 1958), 128ff.; cf. also F. Meier, Die Fawāʾiḥ, 80 (and nn 2
and 3), who names also Marcion and Clement of Alexandria. Within Jewish mysti-
160   Polarity
cism, this way of thought had become exceedingly creative. The Rabbinical seed-
conception of the polar divine attributes (middōth) gradually grew into the
Kabbalistic ‘Tree of Life’, with its rich symbolism of the amalgam of polarity and
unity of existence. See, for example, Gershon Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism (New York: Schoken Books, 1967), 13, 214; Isaiah Tishby, Mishnāt
Hazohār (= The Wisdom of the Zohar), Vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1961),
101ff., 168ff. (in Hebrew).
  28 The paradox of God and Satan’s coexistence and the idea of the ‘coincidence of
opposites’ in the Islamic context were insightfully discussed in P.J. Awn, Satan’s
Tragedy and Redemption: Iblīs in Ṣūfī Psychology (Leiden: Brill, 1983), see especially
122ff., 189–95.
  29 For Arabic linguistics’ attentiveness to the rhetoric of antonyms (aḍdād), namely:
“Words which have two meanings that are opposite to each other”, see G. Weil,
“Aḍdād”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam2, Vol. 1, 184 (= http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-
3912_islam_SIM_0298). See also W.P. Heinrichs, “Ṭibāḳ”, in Encyclopaedia of
Islam2 (= http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1215). Some philolo-
gists even equated antonyms such as khawf and rajāʾ one with the other – see, for
example, al-Aṣmaʿī (d. c.206/821), Kitāb al-Aḍdād, ed. A. Haffner (Beirut: Dār al-
mashriq, 1912), 23–4; Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī (d. 250/864), Kitāb al-Aḍdād, ed.
A. Haffner (Beirut: Dār al-mashriq, 1912), 80; but cf. al-Anbārī (d. 327/939), Kitāb
al-Aḍdād. ed. M.Th. Houtsma (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1881), 11: li-ʾanna ‘l-ʿarab lā
yadhhabu bi-l-rajāʾ madhhab al-khawf illā maʿa ḥarf al-jaḥd.
  30 For the English equivalents of these terms, see n. 99.
  31 For lists of such pairs and their explanation, see, for example, Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj,
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1914), 333ff.; ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Jullābī
al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1911), 367ff.;
al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf (Cairo, n.d.), 32ff.; al-Kalābādhī,
Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf (Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʼ al-Kutub
al-ʻArabiyyah 1960), 118ff.; ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Kharkūshī, Kitāb
Tahdhīb al-Asrār, ed. Bassām Muḥammad Barūd (Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ
al-Thaqāfī, 1999): Bāb fī dhikr al-alfāẓ, 434–9.
  32 See also [n. 15].
  33 Cf. Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran (Tokyo: Keio, 1964), 230ff.;
T. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in Qurʾān (Montreal: McGill University Press,
1966), 101ff., 199ff.; cf. also Daud Rahbar, God of Justice: A Study in the Ethical Doc-
trine of the Qurʾan (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960); Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A
Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Though (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1992).
  34 Translation A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955).
  35 For an alternative commentary of this verse ascribed to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and
al-Mujāhid, see al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. Margaret
Smith (London: Luzac & Co., 1940), 23–4.
  36 For the pair ẓāhir versus bāṭin, cf. also Q. 6:120, and the well-known Q. 57:3 – huwa
‘l-awwalu wa ‘l-ākhiru al-ẓāhiru wa ‘l-bāṭinu.
  37 Commenting on this verse, al-Junayd, the eminent Ṣūfī Sheikh of Baghdād in the
late third/ninth century, identifies qabḍ-basṭ with khawf-rajāʾ: “wa-Allāhu yaqbiḍu
wa-yabsuṭu, yaʿnī ‘l-khawf wa ‘l-rajā’, fa ‘l-rajāʾ yabsuṭu ilā ‘l-ṭāʿa wa-‘l-khawf
yaqbiḍu ʿan al-maʿṣiya – al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 343.
  38 See, for example, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 39; cf. al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf, 88:
wa-maʿa kull maqām ithbāt wa-nafy.
  39 As in the Qurʾān, the canonical Ḥadīth literature has often preserved this pair in
verbal rather than in nominal forms; see, for example, Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, Vol. 3, 27;
Ibn Māja, Sunan: Zuhd 31; al-Tirmidhī, Sunan: Janāʾiz, 11. A variant current in
Ḥadith literature is raghba versus rahba – see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et
 Between fear and hope   161
indices de la tradition Musulmane, Vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1936) 276; cf. also
ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181), Kitāb al-Zuhd wal-raqāʾiq, ed. H.R. al-Aʿẓami
(Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1386), 319, no. 914. ‘Hope’ as contrasted with
‘fear’ was briefly discussed in F. Rosenthal, “Sweeter than Hope”: Complaint and
Hope in Medieval Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), 139–46.
  40 See above, n. 29.
  41 For the pair ʿadl ( justice, balance) versus faḍl (favour, grace), see Chapter 9 in this
monograph.
  42 See Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching
of Ḥārith B. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, a.d. 781–a.d. 857 (London: Sheldon Press, 1935
[1977]); Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Selbstver-
lag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn, 1961); A.J. Arberry, Ṣūfīsm:
An Account of the Mystics of Islam (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1990), 46ff.; Abū
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. J. Pederson (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1960), 49ff.; Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, Vol. 10
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997), 79ff.
  43 Al-Muḥāsibī, Al-Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wal-jawāriḥ, ed. ʿAbdel Kader A. Aṭā
(Cairo: ʻĀlam al-Kutub, 1969), 112; cf. al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh,
ed. Margaret Smith (London: Luzac & Co., 1940), 280: li-ʾanna Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla
jaʿala ‘l-rajāʾ muzīlan li ‘l-qunūṭ alladhī yamnaʿu mina ‘l-tawba wal-ʿamal bāʿithan
ʿalā ‘l-ṭāʿa wal-qurba ilayhi wa-jaʿala l-khawf māniʿan mina ‘l-amn wal-ightirār
muzīlan ʿan al-iqāma ʿala 1-dhunūb māniʿan li-muwāqaʿatihā ʿinda ‘l-hamm bihā.
  44 A vivid eschatological visualization of the fear of God’s wrath in Hell-fire and the
hope for His benevolence in the felicity of Paradise is presented in al-Muḥāsibī’s
Kitāb al-Tawahhum (= Book of Imagining) which can be consulted in the following
editions: 1) ed. A.J. Arberry (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-taʾlīf wal-tarjama wal-nashr, 1937);
2) ed. A. Roman, Une vision humaine des fins dernières (Paris: Klincksiek, 1978);
3) ed. Muṣṭafā Jaʿfar (Ḥalab: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, n.d.); see, for example,
Arberry’s edition, 34: wa-qad ʿāyanta naʿīma ‘l-jinān wa-anta ʿalā l-ṣirāṭ … ḥattā
idhā ṣirta ilā ākhirihi wa-baqiyat al-qadam al-ukhrā ʿalā ‘l-ṣirāṭ wal-khawf wal-
rajāʾ qad iʿtalayā fi qalbika wa-ghalabā ʿalayka. Cf. Asad ibn Mūsā (d. 212/827),
Kitāb al-Zuhd, ed. R.G. Khoury (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1976).
  45 Al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya, 276–7; cf. al-Muḥāsibī, “Kitāb al-Khalwa wal-tan-
aqqul fi ‘l-ʿibāda wa-darajāt al-ʿābidīn”, ed. Fr. Ignatsius Khalifa, al-Mashriq 49,
467: fal-yaʿẓum rajāʾuka li-mā lam taqnaṭ min raḥmatihi, fal-yaʿẓum khawfuka min
amn makr Allāh; see also Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Zuhd wal-raqāʾiq, 318, no. 912;
cf. al-Anṣāri al-Harawī (396/1006–481/1089), Manāzil al-sāʾirīn, ed. S. de Beaurecueil
(Cairo, 1962), 182 §13; 227 §51; 241 §68: fīhi [= al-rajāʾ] min fāʾida wāḥida …
annahu yafthaʾu ḥarārata ‘l-khawf ḥattā lā yaʿduwa ilā ‘l-iyās; cf. al-Sulamī: Kitāb
Sulūk al-ʿārifin, MS Princeton, Yahuda 2658, fols 41b–42a (with thanks to
E. Kohlberg): fa-inna ‘l-khawf yataʾajjaju ʿalā ṣāḥibihi idhā lam yumadd bi‘l-rajāʾ
wa-matā mā ghalaba ‘l-rajāʾ taʿaṭṭala ‘l-ʿabd, wa-idhā ghalaba ʿalayhi ‘l-khawf
qaniṭa fa-yanbaghī an yaʿtadilā.
  46 See, for example, J. Pedersen, “The Islamic Preacher”, in I. Goldziher Memorial
Vol. 1, eds S. Löwinger and J. Somogyi (Budapest: Globus, 1948), 226ff.
  47 See, for example, Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī, Al-Taghrīb wal-tarhīb
(Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 1424 h), 4 vols.
  48 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 60; cf. Abū al-Najīb al-Suhrawardī, Ādāb al-murīdīn, ed.
M. Milson (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978), 21 §50; also Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt
al-qulūb, Vol. 1 (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Miṣrīyah, 1932), 438: wa-in kāna uqīma
maqāma makhāwif al-ṣifāt … mithla … khafīyy al-makr wa-baṭsh al-qudra wa-ḥukm
al-kibr wal-jabarūt rufiʿa min hādhihi al-maqāmāt ilā maqāmi ‘l-maḥabba wal-riḍā.
For the expression al-tabarrum bi ‘l-baqāʾ, cf. al-Kharrāz, Kitāb al-Ṣidq, ed.ʿAbd
al-Ḥalim Maḥmūd (= al-Ṭarīq ilā Allāh) (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārifa, several editions), 88:
162   Polarity
fal-mushtāq ilā Allāh taʿālā huwa ‘l-mutabarrim bi ‘l-dunyā wal-baqāʾ fīhā
wa-huwa muḥibb li ‘l-mawt wa-inqiḍāʾ al-mudda wal-ajal.
  49 See, for example, al-Kharrāz, Kitāb al-Farāgh, in Rasāʾil, ed. al-Qāsim al-Samarrāʾī
(Baghdad: Maṭbaʿa al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-ʿirāqī, 1967), 43: iʿlam anna nūr al-shawq
aʿlā min nūr al-khawf wa-nūr al-khawf aʿlā min nūr al-zuhd wa-nūr al-maḥabba
taqshaʿirru minhu l-julūd. For the pair khawf-rajāʾ see, for example, Abū Ṭālib
al-Makkī (d. 386/996) Qūt al-qulūb, 432ff.; also Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī
(d. 505/1111), Kitāb al-khawf wal-rajāʾ in the fourth quarter al-munjiyyāt of Iḥyāʾ
ʿulūm al-dīn (many editions).
  50 For a harmonizing pattern which combines the three components, cf. the statement
ascribed to Makḥūl al-Nasafī (d. 318/930) quoted [n. 65]; note also al-Sarrāj, Kitāb
al-Lumaʿ, 63, ll. 9–11; al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 246: fal-khawf nār munaw-
wara wal-rajāʾ nūr munawwar wal-maḥabba nūr al-anwār (Abū ʿAlī al-Jūzjānī).
  51 See, for example, al-Sarrāj, Pages from Kitāb Lumaʿ, ed. R.A. Nicholson and
A.J. Arberry (London: Luzac, 1947), 8–9; A.H. Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality
and Writing of al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth Century Mystic (London: Luzac,
1962), 37ff.; M. Smith, An Early Mystic, 30, 33; Louis Massignon, La Passion
d’al-Ḥallāj: Martyr Mystique de l’islam,, Vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 391, n. 2;
B. Reinert, Die Lehre vom Tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1968), 177, 303; Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical
Islam: The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sahl at-Tustari (d. 283/896) (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1980), 22, 62f., 88; see also Chapter 6 in this monograph and the additional
material there.
  52 See al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 439, where this saying is attributed to Muṭarrif [ibn
ʿAbd Allāh], one of the tābiʿūn; cf. al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 62; l. 1; al-Sulamī,
Darajāt al-muʿāmalāt, MS. Berlin 3081, fol. 75a (with thanks to Prof. E. Kohlberg);
note also the tradition, popular in Ṣūfī literature: law wuzina rajāʾ ’l-muʾmin wa-
khawfuhu la-iʿtadalā.
  53 Al-Anwār al-qudsīya fi manāqib al-sāda al-naqshbandiyya (Cairo, n.d.), 79.
  54 See al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 61; al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb; al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 61,
ll. 1–2; cf. al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 63: samiʿtu Abā ʿAlī al-Rudhabārī yaqūlu: al-khawf
wal-rajāʾ humā ka-jināḥay al ṭāʾir idhā istawayā istawā al-ṭā’ir wa-tamma
ṭayarānuhu wa-idhā naqaṣa aḥaduhumā waqaʿa f īhi ‘l-naqṣ wa-idhā dhahabā ṣāra
al-ṭāʾir fi ḥadd al-mawt. Cf. Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-Jamāl (Wiesbaden: Franz
Steiner Verlag, 1957), 41–2: wa-lā budda li ‘l-sayyār min quwwatayni mukhtalifatayni
fī ḥāla wāḥida … yajibu an takūnā mutasāwiyatayni ka-kaffatay al-mīzān.
  55 See Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, Vol. 9, 300.
  56 See al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 32.
  57 Ibid., 303; cf. al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 61: al-khawf wal-rajāʾ zimāmāni ʿalā ‘l-nufūs
li-allā takhruja ilā ruʿūnātihā.
  58 See Atif Khalil, “Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī & the Nourishment of Hearts (Qūt al-qulūb) in
the Context of Early Sufism”, Muslim World 102 (2012): 1–22; R. Gramlich, “Intro-
duction”, in Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abū Ṭālib Al-Makkīs Qūt al-Qulūb, Vol. 1
(Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1992), 11; S. Yazaki, “A Pseudo-Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī? The
Authenticity of ʿIlm al-qulūb”, Arabica 59 (2012): 650–84; eadem, Islamic Mysti-
cism and Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī: The Role of the Heart (New York: Routledge, 2013).
  59 This identification relates to Qurʾānic verses, for example, 10:7: inna ‘lladhīna lā
yarjūna liqāʾanā wa-raḍū bi ‘l-ḥayāt al-dunyā, where, according to some comment-
ators, the root r-j-w stands for the root kh-w-f; thus, Muqātil ibn Sulaymān
(d. 150/767) and, following him al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, explain yarjūna as
yakhāfūna – see Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai
sur le lexique technique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970),
134; cf. also n. 29 concerning the aḍdād.
 Between fear and hope   163
  60 Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 438 (= al-faṣl al-thānī wal-thalāthūn fī sharḥ maqāmāt
al-yaqīn/sharḥ maqām al-rajāʾ); cf. ibid., 440: wa-lam yaqṭaʿ ʿalā ʿabdin bi-ẓāhirihi
mina ‘l-sharr bal yarjū lahu mā baṭana ʿinda Allāh taʿālā mina ‘l-khayr, wa-lam
yashhad li-nafsihi wa-lā li-ghayrihi bi-ẓāhiri ‘l-khayr bal yakhāfu an yakūna qad
istasarra ʿinda Allāh taʿāla bāṭin sharr; cf. the following saying ascribed to Abū
Bakr al-Wāsiṭī: al-khawf lahu ẓulām yataḥayyaru ṣāḥibuhu taḥtahu yaṭlubu abadan
al-makhraj minhu fa-idhā jāʾa al-rajāʾ bi-ḍiyā’ihi kharaja ilā mawāḍiʿ al-rāḥa
­fa-ghalaba ʿalayhi al-tammannī wa-lā ḥasuna al-nahār illā bi-ẓulmat al-layl
wa-f īhimā ṣalāḥ al-kawn – al-Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ, 63, ll. 5–8.
  61 Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 456.
  62 The khawārij held that anyone who commits major sins was a disbeliever and would
therefore be punished by Hell-fire forever.
  63 On the Murjiʾa, see Wilferd Madelung, “Murjiʾa”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam2 (first
published online: 2012); concerning the derivation of Murjiʾa from rajāʾ in the
sense of ‘hope’, see Josef van Ess, “Das Kitāb al-Irjāʾ des Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b.
al-Ḥanafiyya”, Arabica 21 (1974): 28–9; note also the reference to Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb
al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, Vol. 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1909), 173 (mentioned by van Ess):
“… wa-rju mā lam taʿlam wa-lā takun murjiʾan”.
  64 Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 483.
  65 A Ḥanafī scholar from the city of Nasaf (also Nakhshab, today Qarshī, in West
Uzbekistan); his book Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā ahl al-bidaʿ wa-’l-ahwāʾ al-ḍālla is one of
the first works on heresiography. See F. Sezgin, GAS, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1967),
601ff.; see also [n. 50].
  66 This derogatory term, conventionally referring to Zoroastrians and Manicheans, is
sometimes applied also to Ṣūfīs – see Chapter 6 in this monograph.
  67 See al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 490; cf. also the quotation ascribed to Yaḥya ibn
Muʿādh: man ʿabada Allāh taʿālā bi-l-khawf dūna l-rajāʾ ghariqa fi biḥār al-adhkār
wa-man ʿabadahu bi-l-rajā’ dūna l-khawf tāha fi majāwiz al-ightirār wa-man
ʿabadahu bi-l-khawf wal-rajā’ maʿan istaqāma fi maḥajjat al-adhkār – ibid.
  68 For the pair ʿadl/faḍl, see, for example, al-Muḥāsibī, al-Masā’il fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wal-
jawāriḥ (Cairo: ʻĀlam al-Kutub, 1969) 100–1; al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya, 6ff., 157;
al-Kharrāz, Rasāʾil (Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-ʿarabī, 1978), 52; Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī,
Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, Vol. 10, 193: fa-man rajā ghayr faḍlī wa-khāfa ghayr ʿadlī lam
yaʿrifnī; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877),
98: fa-wajadnā … al-ʿadl mina ‘l-rubūbiya … wal-qudra, wa-wajadnā … ‘l-faḍl mina
‘l-jamāl – see Chapter 6 in this monograph; al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf, 51;
al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 138–9; Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Fawā’iḥ, 29 §61, 41ff. Cf.
also I. Goldziher, Die Richtungen, 212ff.; F. Meier, Die Fawā’iḥ, 79ff.; Bernd Radtke,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī: Ein Islamischer Theosoph Des 3./9 (Freiburg: K. Schwarz, 1980),
n. 163. For the inner tension in Rabbinical Judaism concerning the “conflicting appear-
ances of God”, see A.F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Report about
Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 53ff., 136ff. See also Chapter 9 in this
monograph.
  69 See al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 159ff.; al-Sulamī, Risālat al-Malāmatīya, ed.
A.A. al-ʿAfifi (Cairo, Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarbiyya, 1945), 86–120; al-Sarrāj,
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, for example, 103, 177, 208; al-Hujwirī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, for
example, 132–4; Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya, Vol. 10, 244ff. See also Part II in this
monograph.
  70 See al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 98ff.; Abu Nuʿaym, Ḥilya, Vol. 10, 51ff.
  71 See al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 183ff.; Abu Nuʿaym, Ḥilya, Vol. 10, 237ff.
  72 Quoted from al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb; see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Khatm
al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kāthūlīkiyya, 1965), 403–4;
cf. Fritz Meier: Abū Saʿīd-i Abū l-Ḫayr (357–140/967–1049): Wirklichkeit und
164   Polarity
Legende (Tehran and Liège: Bibliothèque Pahlavi, 1976), 148ff.; cf. the saying
ascribed to Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī (d. 215): “When hope predominates fear, one’s
mystical moment is spoilt”, and see al-Hujwīrī’s somewhat elaborate interpretation,
Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 112–13; also al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 68ff.; cf. also the fol-
lowing saying (ascribed to al-Wāsiṭī): al-qalb marrat an fi ẓulām al-khawf asīr
fa-idhā ṭaraqa ṭawāriqa ‘l-rajāʾ fa-huwa amīr – al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 63 l. 8.
  73 Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 2, 117.
  74 Concerning the shift hope > love, see also above.
  75 Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Vol. 4, 161; cf. the saying ascribed to Abū Ḥamza
al-Khurāsānī (d. c.300): khaf saṭwat al-ʿadl wa-rju riqqat al-faḍl wa-lā taʾman
makrahu wa-in anzalaka ‘l-jinān fa-fī ‘l-janna waqaʿa li-abīka Ādam mā waqaʿa –
al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 329; cf. also F. Rosenthal, “Sweeter than Hope”, 145–6.
  76 Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 4, 163; cf. also the saying ascribed to Abū Bakr al-Warrāq:
al-rajāʾ tarwīḥ mina ‘llāh taʿālā li-qulūb al-khāʾifīna wa-lawlā dhālika la-talifat
nufūsuhum wa-dhahilat ʿuqūluhum – al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 62 ll. 2–4.
  77 Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā, Vol. 4, 138; cf. Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ, 43–4 §90.
  78 For more on the comparative aspects of polarity, see Chapter 9 Introduction and The
binary scheme: Ḥaqq and Raḥma section.
  79 See [nn 16 and 17].
  80 Cf. Numbers Rabbah 9.31 – (see Hayman, “Rabbinic Judaism”, 469).
  81 Cf. Genesis Rabbah 8.4 and 12.15 – see ibid., 465.
  82 Cf. BT ʿAvodah Zarah 3b – see ibid.
 83
‫עם‬ See ‫מידותיי‬
‫ואתנהג‬ BT Berachoth 7a: ‫יהי רצון מלפני שיכבשו רחמי את כעסי‬: ‫אמר ר' זוטרא בר טוביה אמר רב‬
‫ויגולו רחמי על‬
.‫כעסי– ויגולו רחמי על מידותיי ואתנהג עם בני במידת הרחמים ואכנס להם לפנים משורת הדין‬
see ‫את‬
Hayman,
‫הי רצון מלפני שיכבשו רחמי‬
“Rabbinic Judaism”. See Chapter 9 in this monograph.
 84 See the many versions of this and similar traditions in al-Aḥādīth al-Qudsiyya,
­al-Majlis al-aʿlā li-’l shuʾūn al-islāmiyyya, Vol. 1 (Cairo, 1969), 230ff.; see online
https://sunnah.com/search/?‫رحمتي‬, for example, Sunan ibn Māja, al-Muqaddima:
“lammā qaḍā ‘llāhu ‘l-khalq kataba fī kitābihi ʿalā nafsihi … inna raḥmatī taghlibu
ghaḍabī”. In both Ṣūfī and Ḥanbalī circles, ‘mercy’ is vouchsafed to all; not only to
believers and repentants, but inclusively to all and everyone, including the sinners –
see, for example, Ibn Rajab, Kalimat al-ikhlāṣ (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1391),
46: wa-fī baʿḍ al-āthār: yaqūlu Allāh taʿālā: ahlu dhikrī ahlu mujālasatī wa-ahlu
ṭāʿatī ahlu karāmatī wa-ahlu maʿṣiyatī lā uʾayyisuhum min raḥmatī: in tābū fa-anā
ḥabībuhum wa-in lam yatūbū fa-anā ṭabībuhum abtalīhim bi’l-maṣāʾib li-uṭahhirahum
mina ‘l-maʿāyib; cf. also R.A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1921), 159–60; also 245, concerning lbn al-Fāriḍ’s
al-Ṭāʾīya al-Kubrā, verse 497; see also al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 1, 446, 449.
  85 See Sezgin, GAS, 36ff.; cf. also John E. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and
Methods of Scriptual Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977): Index
of Names and Subjects, 247; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 26ff.;
L. Massignon, Recueil de textes inédits concernant l’histoire de la mystique en pays
d’Islam (Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geunthner, 1929), 194ff.
  86 Ibn Khalikān, Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1968), 255ff.
  87 A familiar Gnostic motif – see, for example, H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The
Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity (Boston, MA: Beacon
Press, 1963), 56, 204ff.
  88 See Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 81. Nwyia seems to have
­somewhat paraphrased Muqātil’s commentary to Q. 21 (al-Anbiyā): 37, although he
does not refer explicitly to this verse. The gist of the commentary, however, is
indeed this: The first words Adam uttered were al-ḥamdu li-’llāh – “praise be to
God”; and God’s first words to His first created being were li-hādhā khalaqtuka
yarḥamuka rabbuka: “This is what I created you for, your Lord has mercy on you”;
 Between fear and hope   165
fa-sabaqat raḥmatuhu ghaḍabahu – “hence, His mercy came to precede His wrath”.
For Muqātil’s identification of rūḥ (spirit) with raḥma (mercy), see Muqātil
b. Sulaymān, al-Wujūh wal-naẓāʾir, 2005, 170; see Nwyia, ibid., 57; cf. al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972), 153: alā tarā anna Ādam
ʿalayhi ‘l-salām lammā ʿaṭasa bādara bi-l-ḥamd fa-qāla ‘llāh taʿālā lahu:
‘yarḥamuka rabbuka, sabaqat raḥmatī ghaḍabī’; cf. al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, 1967, V,
213, no. 3427: ʿan abī hurayra qāla: qāla rasūl Allāh (Ṣ): lammā khalaqa Allāh
ādam wa-nafakha fīhi ‘l-rūḥ ʿaṭasa fa-qāla ‘al-ḥamdu li-llāh’ fa-ḥamida Allāh bi-
idhnihi, fa-qāla lahu rabbuka: ‘yarḥamuka Allāh …’. The idea that sneezing is
related to the breath of life put into Adam is found in Mandaean sources – cf. for
example, E.S. Drower, The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1960), 35; Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults,
Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore (Oxford: The Clarendon, 1937), 382.
  89 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-qurʾān, ed. Naṣr Zaydān (Cairo: Maṭba
naẓāʾir al-qur, 1969), 74; The same tradition, ascribed to Anas ibn Mālik, occurs in
ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak’s (d. 181), Kitāb al-Zuhd wal-raqāʾiq, 370, no. 1051;
see also ʿAla’ al-Dīn al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz alʿummāl, Vol. 4 (Hyderabad: 1),
1364, 149. For this last reference, I am grateful to the late Prof. M.J. Kister.
  90 Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā, IV, 162–3; cf. al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 2, 118, 213ff.;
al-Kharrāz, Kitāb al-Ṣidq, 108: wa-ruwiya ʿan al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyād …: al-ḥubb afḍal
mina ‘l-khawf. But cf. the preference of ‘fear’ to ‘hope’ by Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī:
yanbaghī li ‘l-qalb an lā yakūna ‘l-ghālib ʿalayhi illā ‘l-khawf fa-innahu idhā ghalaba
‘l-rajāʾ ʿalā l-qalb fasada ‘l-qalb – al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb al-khawf, 61; cf.
L. Massignon, La Passion, Vol. 3, Ch. 12, 237. It is noteworthy that when lists of
maqāmāt (stages) are typologically associated with prophets, rajāʾ is often associated
with Jesus whereas khawf is associated with John the Baptist – see for example,
al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 371, 375; but cf. F. Meier, Abū Saʿīd-i Abū l-Ḫayr, 166. The pre-
sentation of Jesus versus John as a pair of opposites occurs in the Pseudo-Clementines’
teaching, according to which “every ‘prophet of truth’ is paired with a prophet in some
way opposite” – see Drower, The Secret Adam, 46. For the predominance of mercy-
beauty over anger-majesty, see also Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 131.
  91 For an illuminating analysis of the connection of body, psyche and soul/spirit, see
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-Riyāḍa, eds A.J. Arberry and A.H. Abdel Kader
(Cairo: Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1947), 70. See also
Chapter 8 in this monograph.
  92 See, for example, al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 41–2; al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf,
92–111; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 181ff.; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 45ff.; al-Anṣārī al-Harawī,
Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn, 2ff. Also A.J. Arberry, Ṣūfīsm, an Account of the Mystics of Islam
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1950), 75ff.; Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimension of
Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 109ff.; Meier, Die
Fawā’ih, 94ff.; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 171ff.
  93 See al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 32; Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.
ʿA. al-Khālidī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999), Ch. 58, 273–6; Kubrā,
Fawāʾiḥ, 50 §103; but cf. al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 42 and al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 182,
where the derivation suggested is from ḥ-l-l! On the whole topic, see Sara Sviri,
“The Mystical Psychology of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī”, PhD thesis (Tel Aviv: Tel
Aviv University, 1979), Vol. 1, 54ff. (in Hebrew).
  94 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ “Bāb fī ‘l-maqāmāt wa-ḥaqāʾiqihā” (1960 edn), 65.
  95 Al-Sarrāj, Bāb fī maʿnā ‘l-aḥwāl, 66.
  96 Cf. Kubrā, Fawā’iḥ, 29 §61: iʿlam anna li ‘l-ḥaqq maḥāḍir wa-hiya maḥāḍir al-ṣifāt
fa-innaka idhā ʿarajta ilā dhālika ‘l-maḥḍar jarā ʿalā lisānika bi-lā ikhtiyārika ism
dhālika ‘l-maḥḍar wa-ṣifātuhu … wa-li ‘l-qalb naṣīb min kull ṣifa min ṣifāt Allāh
ʿazza wa-jalla wa-dhātihi wa-lā tazālu tazdādu, wa-arbāb al-qulūb mutafāwitūna fī
166   Polarity
dhālika … wa ‘l-tajallī fī l-awwal bi ‘l-ʿilm thumma bi ‘l-mushāhada … thumma …
bi ‘l-ittiṣāf wa-huwa an yatakhallaqa ‘l-qalb bi-hādhihi l-akhlāq wa-yattaṣifa ­bi-hā
dhihi ‘l-ṣifāt. Cf. also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Badʾ Shaʾn, in Kitāb Khatm al-awliyāʾ,
32 §25.
  97 For a succinct exposition of the pair jamāl versus jalāl, see Meier, Die Fawāʾih,
79ff.; cf. also, the rather early occurrence of this pair in the following quotation from
al-Kharrāz’s Kitāb al-Ḥaqā’iq in Rasāʾil, 53: mā dhātiyyat al-fikra? … naẓar
al-qalb bi-ʿayn al-ʿibra ilā jalāl al-qudra wa-jamāl al-minna.
  98 See, for example, R.A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul Ltd, 1975 [1914]), 28ff. (= al-Sarrāj’s list); Arberry, Ṣūfīsm, 75ff.
(= al-Qushayrī’s list); Schimmel, Mystical Dimension, 109ff. (basically al-Makkī’s
list) and cf. 127ff.; cf. also Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 220, note to
verses 21–2, and citing Richard Hartmann, Al-Quschairī’s Darstellung des Ṣūfītums
(Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1914).
  99 The question of a technical term (iṣṭilāḥ) relating to polarity, whether Divine or
human, is relevant. L. Gardet, in the second part of his and G.C. Anawati’s Mystique
Musulmane: aspects et tendances, expériences et techniques (Paris: J. Vrin, 1961),
refers to this phenomenon using the term muqābal – see ibid., 89. Gardet connects it
with the scholastic dialectics of Islam – al-jadaliyya. This seems questionable, due to
the clear mystical tenor of the coincidentia oppositorum suggested here. Taqābul,
however, is implied by Ibn al-ʿArabī, when he writes in his Futūḥāt, for example, ed.
ʿUthmān Yahya, Vol. 9, 473 §523: wa-’l aṣl al-asmāʾ al-ilāhiyya al-mutaqābila. Najm
al-Dīn Kubrā refers to ‘pairs’ (azwāj) when he writes: fa ‘l-qalb wāsiṭa bayna ‘l-azwāj
wa ‘l-āḥād wa-yaẓharu min hādhā sirr ʿazīm fī-qawlihi ʿazza ismuhu: wa-min kulli
shayʾn khalaqnā zawjayni … fa-firrū ilā Allāh [Q. 51: 49–50], yaʿnī mina ‘l-azwāj ilā
‘l-wāḥid”, Fawāʾiḥ, 66 §139; also ibid., 44–6 §§92, 95. F. Meier relates it with the
Gnostic term “syzgie” (Die Fawā’iḥ al Ğamāl, 215 – see also above). In this context,
see the striking statement, ascribed by Kubrā to Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320) alluding
to the metaphor of intercourse: taṣādama ṣifāt al-jalāl wa-ṣifāt al-jamāl fa-tawallada
minhumā ‘l-rūḥ fal-ibn ishāra ilā ‘l-juzʾ wa ‘l-ab wa ‘l-umm ishāra ilā ‘l-kull – Die
Fawāʾiḥ al Ğamāl, 31 §65; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 379ff. …; cf. also Ibn al-ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ
al-Ḥikam, ed. A.ʿA. al-ʿAfifi (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1946), 66: fa-yaqbalu
‘l-ittiṣāf bi’l-aḍdād … ka ‘l-jalīl wa ‘l-jamīl wa-ka ‘l-ẓāhir wa ‘l-bāṭin wa ‘l- awwal
wa ‘l-ākhir wa-huwa ʿaynuhu laysa ghayru.
100 Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 32–3; cf. al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf, 111ff.;
Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 368, 372–4, 376–7, 379–80, 382–3.
101 Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 32–3. Cf. al-Qushayrī, Laṭā’if al-ishārāt, ed. Ibrāhīm Basyūni,
Vol. 1 (Cairo: Dār al-Kātib al-ʿārabī, 1968), 202–3. Concerning the pair qabḍ wa-basṭ,
see al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 374–6. See also the following statement of al-Kharrāz, Rasāʾil,
44: fa-sharḥ qulūb al-awliyā’ min Allāh raḥma wa-faḍl, wa-ḍīq qulūb al-aʿdāʾ min
Allāh ḥukm wa-ʿadl. See also, Bernd Radtke, “Qabḍ und Basṭ”, in Humor in Arabic
Culture, ed. George Tamer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 49–55.
102 Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 33; cf. al-Qushayrī, Sharḥ asmā’ Allāh al-ḥusnā (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-amāna, 1969), 79: fa-inna man ʿarafa Allāh kāna bi-iḥdā ‘l waqtayni:
waqt qabḍ wa-waqt basṭ, fa ‘l-qabḍ yūjibu haybatahu wa ‘l-basṭ yaqtaḍī qurbatahu.
Concerning this pair, see al-Hujwirī, Kashf, 376ff.; cf. also al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir
al-uṣūl, 170: … fa-idhā kāna qalbuhu ʿindahu fī mulk al-jamāl fal-ghālib ʿalayhi
l-uns … wa-man kāna qalbuhu ʿindahu fī mulk al-jalāl fal-ghālib ʿalayhi l-hayba.
103 Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ, 43–4 §90.
104 Kubrā, Fawā’iḥ al Ğamāl, 46 §95–96; cf. 41 §87: wa-lā budda li ‘l-sayyār min quw-
watayni mukhtalifatayni fī ḥāla wāḥida nabaʿatā min maʿnā wāḥid; cf. also 43 §88:
wa-kull ṣāḥib maqām wa-ḥāl fa-lā budda an yakūna fīhi fī ‘l-bidāya mulawwanan wa-fī
l-nihāya mustaqīman mutamakkinan, fa-idhā istaqāma wa-tamakkana tamakkan mina
 Between fear and hope   167
‘l-ʿubūr ʿalā l-ṣirāṭ; cf. al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb al-istiqāma, 94, ll. 23: wa-man lam
yakun mustaqīman fī ṣifātihi lam yartaqi min maqāmihi ilā ghayrihi wa-lam yabni
sulūkahu ʿalā ṣiḥḥa; cf. also the debate concerning the transiency or permanence of
tamkīn in al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 41–2 and the author’s conclusion: wal-awlā an
yuqāla inna ‘l-ʿabd mā dāma fī ‘l-taraqqī fa-ṣāḥib talwīn … fa-idhā waṣala ilā l-ḥaqq
bi-inkhinās aḥkām al-bashariyyya makkānahu l-ḥaqq subḥānahu … fa-huwa mutam-
akkin fī ḥālihi … thumma … fa-huwa fī ‘l-ziyādāt mutalawwin bal mulawwan wa-fī
aṣl ḥālihi mutamakkin, fa-abadan yatamakkanu fī ḥāla aʿlā mimmā kāna f īhā qablahu
thumma yataraqqā ilā mā fawqa dhālika, cf. also al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, 370–3.
105 This is stated explicitly in Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ, 47 §97: wa-innamā qulnā bi-anna ‘l-uns
wal-hayba jināḥā ‘l-shaykh liʾannahumā thamratā tajallī ‘l-dhāt fa-huwa wāṣil ilā
‘l-dhāt wa-mūṣal ilayhi wa-huwa ‘l-maqṣad al-aqṣā.
106 Cf. ibid., §98, 48, where two higher stages are implied between maḥabba – maʿrifa
and fanā’ – baqā’, namely: maḥw – ithbāt and saḥw – sukr, but cf. ibid., §87, 42. To
the interconnection between qabḍ—basṭ and fanāʾ – baqāʾ, cf. the following state-
ment ascribed to Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rudhabārī (d. 369): … suʾila ʿan al-qabḍ wal-
basṭ … fa-qāla: Inna ‘l-qabḍ awwal asbāb al-fanāʾ wa ‘l-basṭ awwal asbāb
al-baqāʾ, fa-ḥāl man qubiḍa al-ghayba wa-ḥāl man busiṭa al-ḥuḍūr, wa-naʿt man
qubiḍa al-ḥuzn wa-naʿt man busiṭa al-surūr—al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 499.
107 See al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb al-khawf, 60, 61.
108 Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ, §101, 49.
109 al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb al-khawf, 33–4.
110 Ibid., 119.
111 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 40. ll. 6–8.
112 Ibid., 31, ll. 3–5; cf. Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 194/810), “Ādāb al-ʿibādāt”, ed. Paul
Nwyia (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1973): wa-mathal nūr al-shawq maʿa nūr
al-maḥabba ka-mathal al-qamar al-tāliʿ, fa-baynamā huwa yunẓaru ilayhi idh
talaʿat al-shams fa-atfaʾat nūrahu wal-qamar f ī makānihi lam yabraḥ wa-lam
yanquṣ min nūrihi shayʾ fa-kadhālika nūr al-maḥabba li-llāh aqwā l-anwār … ” –
Paul Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musulmans: Šaqīq al-Balh̆
ī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1973), 21.
113 Al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf, Ch. 59, 127, trans. Arberry, The Doctrine of the
Ṣūfīs (Cambridge: The University Press, 1935), 126–7 (slightly modified).
114 Richard Hartmann, Al-Kuschairis Darstellung des Sūfītums, 84ff.
115 Hellmut Ritter, Das Meer der Seele: Mensch, Welt Und Gott In Den Geschichten
Des Farīduddīn ʻAṭṭār (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1955), Ch. 17, 253ff.
116 Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 149ff.
117 Ibid., 76ff.
118 Fritz Meier, Die Fawā’iḥ, 79ff.
119 Fritz Meier, Abū Saʿīd-i Abū l-Ḥayr (357–440/967–1049): Wirklichkeit und Legende
(Leiden: Brill, 1976), 185–95.
120 Henry Corbin, L’homme de lumière dans te soufisme iranien (Paris: Éditions
Présence, 1971), 98–9, n. 64.
121 Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. R. Manheim
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 207ff.
122 Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalāloddin Rumi
(London: East-West Publications, 1980), 231, 448ff.
123 See Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in
Islamic Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1992), esp. 8, where Murata names the
divine polar names “yang names” and “yin names”.
124 van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 94ff.
125 See, for example, al-Junayd, Rasā’il, ed. A.H. Abdel-Kader (London, 1976), 52; cf.
also Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Ṣūfism of Ibn ʻArabī (1969), 188, 207.
 ‫‪168   Polarity‬‬
‫‪126 See, for example, al-Junayd, Rasā’il, ed. A.H. Abdel-Kader, 53: Al-khawf yaqbiḍunī‬‬
‫‪wal-rajā’ yabsuṭunī wal-ḥaqīqa tajmaʿunī … fa-idhā qabaḍanī bi-l-khawf afnānī‬‬
‫… ‪ʿanī … idhā basaṭanī bil-l-rajā’ raddanī ʿalayya‬‬
‫‪127 See, for example, L. Massignon, La Passion2, Vol. 1, 390, cf. also al-Ḥallāj, Kitāb‬‬
‫‪al-ṭawāsīn (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1913), 49: liʾanna ‘l-ashyāʾ tuʿrafu bi-aḍdādihā‬‬
‫‪wa-man lā yaʿrifu al-qabīḥ lā yaʿrifu al-ḥasan.‬‬
‫‪128 See, for example, Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya, Vol. 10, 193.‬‬
‫‪129 See Michael Ebstein and Tzahi Weiss, “A Drama in Heaven: ‘Emanation on the‬‬
‫‪Left’ in Kabbalah and a Parallel Cosmogonic Myth in Ismāʿīlī Literature”, History‬‬
‫‪of Religions, Vol. 55, 148–71. This is dealt with further in Chapters 9 and 10 in this‬‬
‫‪monograph.‬‬
‫‪130 In contrast, cf. the one-sided positive evaluation of ṣidq in such writings as, for‬‬
‫‪example, Ibn Abī Dunyā, Makārim al-Akhlāq, ed. J.A. Bellamy (Wiesbaden:‬‬
‫‪F. Steiner, 1973), 25ff.‬‬
‫‪131 Cf. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā’s introduction to his edition of Khatm al-Awliyā’, 105ff.‬‬
‫‪132 See, for example, al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 109:‬‬
‫ﻭﺃﻣﺎ ﺃﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﻴﻘﻴﻦ ‪ ...‬ﻭﻟﻬﻢ ﺩﺭﺟﺎﺕ‪ :‬ﻓﺄﻭﻟﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﺨﺸﻴﺔ ﻳﻤﺘﻨﻊ ﺑﻬﺎ ﻣﻦ ﺟﻤﻴﻊ ﻣﺎ ﻛﺮﻩ ﷲ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﻰ ﺩﻕ ﺍﻭ ﺟﻞ‪ ,‬ﻭﺍﻟﺨﺸﻴﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻘﺮﺑﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻠﻢ ﺑﺎ ‪ ,‬ﻓﺎﺫﺍ ﻋﻠﻢ ﻟﺰﻣﻪ ﺧﻮﻑ ﺍﻟﻌﻈﻤﺔ‬
‫ﻻ ﺧﻮﻑ ﺍﻟﻌﻘﺎﺏ‪ ,‬ﻭﺍﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﺨﻮﻑ ﻻﺯﻣﺎ ﻟﻠﻘﻠﺐ ﻏﺸﺎﻩ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﺤﺒﺔ ﻓﻴﻜﻮﻥ ﺑﺎﻟﺨﻮﻑ ﻣﻌﺘﺼﻤﺎ ‪ ...‬ﻭﺑﺎﻟﻤﺤﺒﺔ ﻣﻨﺒﺴﻄﺎ ‪ ...‬ﺍﺫﺍ ﻟﻮ ﺗﺮﻛﺐ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻟﺨﻮﻑ ﻻﻧﻘﺒ ﺾ ﻭﻋﺠﺰ‬
‫ﻋﻦ ﻛﺜﻴﺮ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻣﻮﺭﻩ ﻭﻟﻮ ﺗﺮﻛﻪ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻟﻤﺤﺒﺔ ﻻﺳﺘﺒﺪ ﻭﺗﻘﻮﻯ‪ ,‬ﻭﻟﻜﻨﻪ ﻟﻄﻒ ﻟﻪ ﻓﺠﻌﻞ ﺍﻟﺨﻮﻑ ﺑﻄﺎﻧﺘﻪ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺤﺒﺔ ﻅﻬﺎﺭﺗﻪ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﺴﺘﻘﻴﻢ ﺑﻪ ﻗﻠﺒﻪ ﺛﻢ ﻳﺮﻗﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﺮﺗﺒﺔ ﺍﺧﺮﻯ‬
‫ﻭﻫﻲ ﺍﻟﻬﻴﺒﺔ ﻭﺍﻻﻧﺲ ﻓﺎﻟﻬﻴﺒﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺟﻼﻟﻪ ﻭﺍﻻﻧﺲ ﻣﻦ ﺟﻤﺎﻟﻪ ﻓﺎﺫﺍ ﻧﻈﺮ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺟﻼﻟﻪ ﻫﺎﺏ ﻭﺍﻧﻘﺒﺾ‪ ...‬ﻭﺍﺫﺍ ﻧﻈﺮ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺟﻤﺎﻟﻪ ﺍﻣﺘﻼ ﻛﻞ ﻋﺮﻕ ﻣﻨﻪ ﻓﺮﺣﺎ‪ ....‬ﻭﻟﻮ ﺗﺮﻛﻪ‬
‫ﻫﻜﺬﺍ ﺍﺩﺍﻩ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﺘﻘﻮﻯ ﻭﺍﻻﻓﺮﺍﻁ ﻟﻜﻨﻪ ﻟﻄﻒ ﻟﻪ ﻓﺠﻌﻞ ﺍﻟﻬﻴﺒﺔ ﺷﻌﺎﺭﻩ ﻭﺍﻷﻧﺲ ﺩﺛﺎﺭﻩ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﺴﺘﻘﻴﻢ ﺑﻪ ﻗﻠﺒﻪ‪ ...‬ﺛﻢ ﻳﺮﻗﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﺮﺗﺒﺔ ﺍﺧﺮﻯ ﻭﻫﻲ ﻣﺮﺗﺒﺔ ﺍﻻﻧﻔﺮﺍﺩ ﺑﺎ ‪,‬‬
‫ﻗﺮﺑﺔ ﺍﻟﻘﺮﺑﺔ ﺍﻟﻌﻈﻤﻰ ﻭﺍﺩﻧﺎﻩ ﻭﻣﻜﻦ ﻟﻪ ﺑﻴﻦ ﻳﺪﻳﻪ‪ ...‬ﻭﻓﺘﺢ ﻟﻪ ﺍﻟﻄﺮﻳﻖ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻭﺣﺪﺍﻧﻴﺘﻪ ﻓﻬﻮ ﻧﺎﻅﺮ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻓﺮﺩﺍﻧﻴﺘﻪ‪...‬‬
‫)‪(Cf. Meier, Die Fawā’ih, 216, referring to al-Qushayrī‬‬
‫‪133 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Ghawr al umūr, ed. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār‬‬
‫‪al-Kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2002), 106; also, Geneviève Gobillot, Le Livre de la profond-‬‬
‫‪eur des choses (Villeneuve d’Ascq, France: Presses universitaires du Septentrion,‬‬
‫‪1996),‬ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﻭﺻﻔﺎﺗﻪ ‪240‬‬
‫ﺍﻟﺬﺍﺗﻴﺔ ﻓﺠﻤﻴﻊ‬ ‫‪et passim.‬‬
‫ﺗﻔﺴﻴﺮ ﻗﻮﻟﻪ ﺁﻟﻢ ﻗﺎﻝ‪ … :‬ﺍﻥ ﺣﺸﻮ ﺍﻻﻟﻒ ﺍﻟﻮﺣﺪﺍﻧﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺮﺑﻮﺑﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﻔﺮﺩﻳﺔ ﻭﺍﻻﻟﻮﻫﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﺳﻤﺎﺅﻩ‬
‫ﻭﺍﻟﻔﺮﺩﻳﺔ ﻭﺍﻻﻟﻮﻫﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﺳﻤﺎﺅﻩ ﻭﺻﻔﺎﺗﻪ ﺍﻟﺬﺍﺗﻴﺔ ﻓﺠﻤﻴﻊ ﻣﺎ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ ﻣﻦ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﻉ ﺍﻧﻤﺎ ﻳﺨ ﺮﺝ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻻﻟﻒ ﻭﻫﻮ ﷲ‪ .‬ﻭﺣﺸﻮ ﺍﻟﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﻠﻄﻒ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﺮ ﻭﺍﻻﺣﺴﺎﻥ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻔﻮ ﻭﺍﻟﺮﺣﻤﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺼ‬
‫ﻮ ﺍﻟﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﻠﻄﻒ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﺮ ﻭﺍﻻﺣﺴﺎﻥ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻔﻮ ﻭﺍﻟﺮﺣﻤﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺼﻔﺢ ﻭﻣﺎ ﻳﺸﺒﻬﻬﺎ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻼﻡ ﻭﻫﻮ ﺍﻟﻠﻄﻴﻒ‪ .‬ﻭﺣﺸﻮ ﺍﻟﻤﻴﻢ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﻜﻮﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﻘﺪﺭﺓ ﻭﺍﻟﺠﺒﺮﻭﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺴﻠﻄﺎﻥ ﻭﺍﻟﻘﻬﺮ ﻭﺍﻟ‬
‫ﻦ ﺍﻟﻼﻡ ﻭﻫﻮ ﺍﻟﻠﻄﻴﻒ‪ .‬ﻭﺣﺸﻮ ﺍﻟﻤﻴﻢ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﻜﻮﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﻘﺪﺭﺓ ﻭﺍﻟﺠﺒﺮﻭﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺴﻠﻄﺎﻥ ﻭﺍﻟﻘﻬﺮ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﺬﺍﺏ ﻭﻣﺎ ﻳﺸﺒﻬﻬﺎ ﻳﺨﺮﺝ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻴﻢ ﻭﻫﻮ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﻜﻮﺕ‪.‬‬
 8 The self (nafs) and her
transformation1

Introduction
The question ‘What is the self that is transformed?’ has, from the perspective of
medieval Arabic literature, an intriguing semantic aspect. The immediate equi-
valent for ‘self’ in Islamic mystical literature, with which this book is concerned,
is nafs. This, as dictionaries will testify, is a homonym for a variety of meanings,
ranging from ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ to ‘appetite’ and ‘desire’. It also designates reflex-
ivity; thus, nafsī denotes ‘myself’, bi-nafsihi – ‘by himself’ and so on. This equiv-
ocalness made possible the employment of the term in two disparate meanings by
two disciplines, both interested in psychological questions. In the psycho-­
philosophical terminology that was coined during the process of translating Greek
into Arabic, nafs became the equivalent of Greek psyche (or Latin anima) and was
hence understood as ‘soul’, essentially a subtle and transcendent substance.2
Thus, for example, for Ibn Sīnā, one of the most influential Islamic philo-
sophers of the Middle Ages, “nafs, in relation to ‘matter’ in which it resides […]
deserves to be called ‘form’ (ṣūra), and in relation to the perfection of a species
which it brings about […] deserves to be called ‘perfection’ (kamāl)”.3 In Ṣūfī
psychology, on the other hand, nafs became, primarily, the designator of a neg-
ative, earth-bound fiery entity that needs to be constantly condemned and watched
over.4 In addition, the reflexive aspect of the term yielded a discourse on nafs that
was centred around egocentricity and selfishness. Although classical Ṣūfism and
medieval Islamic philosophy represent two autonomous disciplines, each with its
own distinct terminology, neither can be said to have been impervious to the other.
Awareness of the two contrasting meanings of nafs is evident, for example, from
the following definition offered by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), a prolific
popularizer of Ṣūfism who was well versed in (albeit critical of) philosophy:

The term nafs has two meanings. The one relates to that entity in man in
which the power of anger and the power of desire are found. This use is the
most prevalent among the Ṣūfīs. For them nafs means the element in man
that includes all the blameworthy qualities […] The second meaning is [that
of] the subtle entity […] that is man’s true reality, soul (nafs [!]) and
essence.5
170   Polarity
In what follows, I propose to discuss the transformation of nafs in the sense
“most prevalent among Ṣūfīs”, namely, the inferior aspect of the human psycho-
physical constitution. It should be noted that modern scholarship seldom reflects
al-Ghazālī’s fine awareness of the ambiguity of nafs. Perhaps this is because
scholars are often interested in either one or the other of the two disciplines in
which nafs is used as a terminus technicus. To those interested in philosophical
psychology, there is nothing odd in rendering nafs as ‘soul’ or even as ‘spirit’. In
the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, for example, the author
explains that “since the two concepts of nafs and rūḥ are so closely connected,
both will be considered here”, namely, under Nafs.6 For those accustomed to
Ṣūfī vocabulary, however, such rendering fails to convey the overriding negative
understanding of nafs in Ṣūfī mystical psychology.7 Therefore, it is hardly
­surprising that most translators of Ṣūfī texts exhibit inconsistency and uncer-
tainty when they encounter the term nafs: Should it be rendered soul, lower soul,
carnal soul, appetitive soul, self, lower-self, impulsive self, instinctual self, ego –
or any combination of these options?8
A negative view of nafs is intrinsic not only to Ṣūfīs but also to traditional
authors with an ascetic or moralistic leaning. A prophetic tradition often quoted
in pietistic literature sums up this attitude succinctly: “Your worst enemy is the
nafs that lies between your sides” (aʿdā ʿaduwwika ‘l-nafs bayna janbayka).9
Since nafs is considered an enemy, war has to be waged against her. But the
nafs, in this imagery of battling and enmity, does not stand alone. The scope of
pietistic militancy is widened when other ‘enemies’ enter the war zone. These,
traditionally, are Satan (al-shayṭān, Iblīs), who often, as in Gnostic and Christian
writings, is designated the Adversary (al-ʿaduww), and the base inclination
(al-hawā).10 Against this triad, the devout Muslim, Ṣūfī or otherwise, is urged to
wage the ‘greater holy-war’ (al-jihād al-akbar).11
Adverse as the nafs may be, it is seen by Ṣūfī authors as a component of
human nature that can be transformed. In fact, the ideal of the transformation of
the self and her bad qualities is a sine qua non in Ṣūfism. It stems from an out-
look that couples the sombre characterization of nafs with an optimistic view of
change. It is that very culpable nature of man that in the end, when transformed,
ennobles him. Static goodness, such as that of angels, is deemed inferior to that
which man acquires through repentance and effort.12
A simplified, yet adequate, definition of Ṣūfism could easily be ‘a practical
and devotional path that leads to the transformation of the self from its lowly
instinctual nature to the ultimate state of subsistence in God – a state in which
all blameworthy traits fall away’. It is from this vantage point that Ṣūfī authors
see the transformation of qualities, tabdīl al-akhlāq, as the process whereby a
holy man, the friend of God (al-walī), is forged out of faulty human nature.
Significantly, one of the highest ranks in the mystical hierarchy is reserved for
the abdāl, the ‘Substitutes’. These are holy men and women,13 usually forty in
number, without whom the world cannot subsist. The term abdāl derives from a
verbal root, b d l, that denotes transposition and substitution. Hence, according
to the standard explanation, the abdāl are so called because whenever one of
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   171
them dies, God substitutes (baddala) another for him. Yet, within Ṣūfī circles,
an additional explanation circulated: They are so called because they have trans-
formed (baddalū) their base qualities.14
The idea of the transformation of the self has been understood to rest upon
three Qurʾānic verses which address nafs explicitly. The first verse addresses the
nafs as “that which incites to evil” (al-nafs al-ammāra bi ’l-sūʾ – Q. 12:53); in the
second, she is designated “the nafs that blames” (al-nafs al-lawwāma – Q. 75:2);
and in the third she is described as “the serene self” (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna –
Q. 89:27). These three designations, culled from disjoint locations, were seen,
when juxtaposed in the foregoing order, as a paradigm for the progressive trans-
formation of the lower-self through effort, discipline, introspection, and, ulti-
mately, divine grace, into the desired state of fulfilment.15 This Qurʾānic paradigm
gave rise to two distinct attitudes. One is eschatological, exhibited mainly in the
pietistic literature, in which the apotheosis of nafs comes about when, after
the death of the body, the serene self, in everlasting paradisiacal bliss, will reap the
fruit of its former devotion.16 The other is mystical, in which the thrust of the
transformative process is in what is experienced and achieved during one’s life-
time. According to the latter, the image of serenity implies a self, stripped of
worldly attachments and empty of fears or hopes, fulfilled simply by its existential,
hence timeless, proximity to God.
There has existed in Islam since its formative period a rich literature advo-
cating moral attitudes and ascetic norms of behaviour and, consequently, inter-
ested in the topic of harnessing self and desires. This homiletic literature,
however, is hardly interested in a deeper psychological transformation of the
self, a transformation that will allow an epiphanic experience. Hence, despite
many overlaps, one can clearly discern two separate corpora of literature: pietis-
tic and mystical. The extracts chosen to be highlighted and discussed in what
follows, mostly from the writings of eighth- and ninth-century authors, exhibit a
psycho-mystical discourse on self transformation that allows us to conjecture
that mystical disciplines, designed to transform the nafs in order to prepare it for
a transcendental encounter, existed independently of ascetic streams from very
early on.
Since the pioneering studies of Ignaz Goldziher, there has been a tendency in
Islamic scholarship to argue that asceticism (zuhd), in relation to mysticism
(taṣwwuf), is an early, lesser stage, thus suggesting a gradual, linear transition
from the former type of religious attitude to the latter.17 I doubt that such an out-
look is accurate, either historically or phenomenologically. Rather, a distinction
can be made between a pietistic approach that upholds asceticism as an idealized
way of life and a mystical approach that sees asceticism as a mere technique, often
a temporary technique, whereby inner transformation can be achieved. As an
idealized way of life, it is attested in a rich pietistic literature extant in independent
works18 or as part of large compilations.19 This pietistic literature and the ascetic
tendencies that it reflects can hardly be confined to the limits of the early centuries
of Islamic history only.20 At the same time, there has existed in Islam, from very
early on, a mystical literature in which ascetic vocabulary and imagery have been
172   Polarity
used in the service of something that lies beyond the ascetic ideal. Asceticism, in
this context, becomes no more than a station, a stage – manzila, maqām – on a
mystical journey (sayr) or path (ṭarīqa), whose destination far outreaches it.21 It is
this early discourse on the progressive stages of self transformation, leading to a
mystical mode of existence, that will engage us in what follows.

The physiology of nafs

Ṣūfī authors teach that the nafs is a vital energy that resides and operates within
the body and is associated with the downward-pulling energies of earth and
earthly inclinations. It is identified as an earth-bound force counteracting the
spiritual energy (rūḥ) that pulls man upward towards his ideal state of being.22
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, who had a keen interest in the physiology of nafs,
describes nafs as being inherent in the clay from which Adam was created. It
interacts with desire (shahwa), which also resides in the body, originating in the
fire of Hell, and relating to joy ( faraḥ), attractive loveliness (zīna), and the base
inclination (hawā).23 He describes it as the life force that enlivened the clay
(ṭīna) from which Adam was created. Although it was activated by the breath of
God, it is essentially an earthly life force inherent in the clay, or soil, itself. After
materializing, it attached itself to the body’s hollow interior ( jawf). There it is
located in the lungs, from where it moves about with the breath (nafas). It
spreads with immense speed throughout the body via the blood vessels and
interacts with other organic forces of a similar nature. One such force is desire
(shahwa), which is seen by al-Tirmidhī as an organic substance with a capacity
for growth, movement, and fermentation. The origin of desire is the fire of Hell,
whence it retains a kinship to joy ( faraḥ), attractive loveliness (zīna), and the
base inclination (hawā). Desire, too, takes residence in the body. It is located in
the vicinity of nafs, within a subtle organ near the lungs. Both nafs and desire
are characterized as hot, fiery winds that, when mobilized, awaken and kindle
one another. The fast movement of nafs in the bloodstream produces pleasure
(ladhdha), another animated energy on which the nafs feeds. Pleasure interacts
with the base inclination (hawā), and this cluster of impulses, filled with vital,
organic energy, reaches the bodily organs by means of the fast movement of the
nafs through the bloodstream. One example of the consequence of such meeting
of energies is the gushing forth of the seminal fluid (māʾ al-ṣulb).24
Al-Tirmidhī’s analysis of the dynamics of the nafs and its association with
pleasure, desire, and the base inclination is consistent, though hardly orderly or
formal:

When the clay became alive, the nafs emerged, established herself within
the interior of the body and exhaled. … The nafs resides in the lungs and
from here she breathes (tatanaffasu) due to the life force inherent in her. …
Between the heart and the lung God placed a subtle vessel from where a
whizzing wind flows through the blood vessels. The origin of this wind is
the fire [of Hell], it is created from this fire. … In this fire joy and loveliness
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   173
are located. He called [this wind] desire. … When, due to an incidental
memory, this wind stirs up in its vessel, the nafs senses it and her [own] fire
is kindled. … The nafs is a turbid wind whose origin is earthy; she spreads
within the blood-vessels and fills them up in less than an eye-blink. … The
origin of the base inclination (hawā) is the breath (nafas) of fire. When this
breath emerges from the fire [of Hell], it carries with it desires [with which
Hell-fire is surrounded]25 that contain joy ( faraḥ) and attractive loveliness
(zīna), and these it delivers to the nafs. Joy and loveliness arouse the nafs,
due to the hot wind that is placed by her side in that subtle vessel [i.e.
desire], and, in less than an eye-blink, she spreads within the blood vessels
that pervade the whole body, from head to foot. From her movement within
the body the nafs derives pleasure (ladhdha) and is cheered up. Hence her
desire and pleasure.26

This explicit description makes it clear that the power of nafs in Ṣūfī awareness
is far from abstract or lofty. Its reality is seen as an unrelenting aspect of human
organic nature, enmeshed in man’s physical and psychological make-up. It is
part and parcel of every physical activity, in fact, of each exhalation. The inde-
structibility of this life force captivated the imagination of a later Ṣūfī, Najm
al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 618/1221), a revered visionary from Central Asia who offers
the following analogy in his autobiographical Breaths of Beauty and Revelations
of Majesty ( fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl wa-fawātiḥ al-jalāl):

The nafs is alive (wal-nafs ḥayya lā tamūtu),27 she does not die, she
resembles a viper (mithāluhā mithāl u ‘l-afʿā). Slaughter it, pulverize its
head into tiny bits, take off its skin, cook its flesh, eat it, and then, years
later, when you place [the skin] in the heat of the sun – it will move. So also
the nafs: when she unites with the fires of the base inclination and desire, as
well as with the Satanic fires, she, too, moves. And from then on, she con-
taminates the bodily organs and robs them of their strength and nourishment
till she thrives.28

The training of the self: Shaqīq al-Balkhī’s Acts of Worship29

Descriptions of the means whereby the self is trained and harnessed can be culled
from early texts. One of the earliest texts that describe the training of the nafs as
part of a process of transformation is ascribed to Shaqīq al-Balkhī, a second/
eighth-century mystic from Transoxiana.30 In a short treatise titled Rules of Con-
duct for Acts of Worship (Ādāb al-ʿibādāt),31 this early mystic uses rudimentary
yet paradigmatic terminology and structure whose focus is a carefully designed
discipline of self-transformation. By “acts of worship” (ʿibādāt), he refers not to
ritualistic acts that the religious law requires of all believers, but rather to supere-
rogatory acts that “the people of sincerity” (ahl al-ṣidq), those who seek to
­transform the darkness (ẓulma) of their nature into light (nūr), take upon
­themselves voluntarily. Evidently, not all believers are thus inclined.32 ­Evidently,
174   Polarity
too, the religious law by itself does not provide a sufficient transformative discip-
line.33 In his treatise, Shaqīq outlines, with precision and authority that reflect sus-
tained experience, the different practices that have to be applied at each of four
progressive stages: abstention (zuhd), fear (khawf), longing for Paradise (al-shawq
ilā ‘l-janna), and, ultimately, love of God (al-maḥabba li ‘llāh).34
A clear pattern that runs through all the stages emerges: (1) The discipline
prescribes changes with each phase of the transformative journey; (2) The
period assigned for each stage is limited to forty days, at the end of which
the practices pertaining to it may be abandoned; (3) The attainment of each prac-
tice is described as inner lights located within the heart; (4) Parallel to the inner
transformation, each type of practice produces a corresponding change in the
practitioner’s character and behaviour; (5) The transformative process starts off
as an act of will but is complemented and reaches its completion by an act of
divine grace; (6) The attainment of higher stages overrides, but does not cancel
out, that of lesser ones; and (7) The personal transformation brings about
changes in the practitioner’s social status.

Abstention
The first step in the stage of abstention is to exercise hunger, or even, for those
who are exceptionally keen, total fasting. Hunger is designed to train the self to cut
off her desire for superfluous food and drink. By extension, this practice leads to a
reduction not only in the consumption of food but also in the self’s overall desire
for superfluous things ( fuḍūl). Eventually, when abstention is practised continu-
ously for forty days, the nafs becomes detached from its previous attraction to all
worldly things. Consequently, the first signs of transformation occur:

When day by day he proceeds to train his self in this manner and to educate
her to cut off her desire for superfluous things, [God] plucks this desire out
of his heart. On each day that he spends in this fashion, God lifts the dark-
ness out of his heart and replaces it with light. After forty days, no darkness
that has not been replaced by light remains in his heart. Then his heart
becomes a glowing light, and the light of abstention settles within him.
(18, ll. 6–10)35

The forty-day period is noteworthy. It defines the purposive and practical nature
of the ascetic exercise. Going through periods of fasting, eating little, are not in
themselves meritorious, and do not convey an ascetic ideal that should be
adhered to indefinitely; it is rather a temporary means to an end. Shaqīq’s atti-
tude is evinced from the permissive advice he gives:

When [the seeker] reaches the end of this stage, if he wishes he may keep
up the practices pertaining to it until the day he dies; or, if he wishes, he
may move on to the next stage.
(18, ll. 17–8)36
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   175
This is askesis or riyāḍa – the Arabic equivalent of the Greek term proper.37
The training of the nafs is modelled upon any course of training, religious or
otherwise, that demands a rigorous commitment and temporary abstinence. The
merit lies not in the training or in the abstinence per se, but in the objective they
are designed to achieve. In terms that have become characteristic of Islamic
mysticism, the objective of askesis is the transformation of the dark energies
governing human nature into luminous ones that herald a spiritual existence. The
means whereby this objective is achieved is to deny the self that to which she
has been accustomed.38 The preceding extracts state clearly, that, when the inner
transformation occurs, the light of abstention (nūr al-zuhd), which is an inner
rather than outer state, overrides the need for external ascetic practices. Here, in
Shaqīq’s words, is the effective result, even at this early stage of the riyāḍa, of
this transformation:

[The seeker] then abides in the world, but he does not make the world his
wish as other people do, he does not compete for it as other people compete,
he does not aim to indulge in its pleasures, and he does not find joy in its
companionship. It becomes minor in his eyes. He casts it aside. He relaxes
from the weariness of pursuing [worldly things] and he causes his self to
relax from all such weariness. When you see him, he is always strong, ener-
getic, content, self-sufficient [ghanī, lit. rich], non-worrying, dignified. His
face radiates the brightness of worshippers and his heart [contains] the light
of ascetics. He has no need for the world apart from his basic nourishment.
He is better than others.
(18, ll. 11–16)

Why forty days? Forty days is a paradigmatic unit of time allowing a course of
training to take effect and changes to occur. It has become institutionalized in the
practice of chilla, forty days of seclusion and fasting that a disciple is sometimes
bidden to commit himself or herself to by his or her master.39 Ascetic practices of
forty days are, no doubt, pre-Islamic. The biblical origin of this temporal unit,
reflected in the ‘Tales of the Prophets’, is acknowledged by Ṣūfī authors. Thus, for
example, in Kashf al-Maḥjūb (The Unveiling of the Veiled), a popular Ṣūfī manual
of the eleventh century, the author, ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī, writes:

The forty days’ fast (chilla) of the saints is derived from the fast of Moses
(Q. 7:142).40 When the saints desire to hear the word of God spiritually, they
remain fasting for forty days. After thirty days have passed, they rub their
teeth; then they fast ten days more, and God speaks to their hearts.41

Al-Hujwīrī’s explanation of the effect of the forty days’ practice is blatantly

physiological, almost medical and therapeutic:

Now, hearing the word of God is not compatible with the subsistence of the
natural temperament: Therefore the four humors must be deprived of food
176   Polarity
and drink for forty days in order that they may be utterly subdued, and that
the purity of love and the subtlety of the spirit may hold absolute sway.42

Fear
After completing the term by which the state of inner zuhd is achieved, the
seeker moves on to the stage of fear (khawf). The practice here begins with con-
templating death and educating the nafs to fear God intensely.43 This practice
results in an immediate softening of the heart.44 Moreover, when the practice is
done with sincerity and intention, God rewards it by transforming the initial,
self-willed fear into fear on another scale, that which Shaqīq calls mahāba, awe,
an intense emotion that God himself implants within the heart. When awe settles
within the heart, it goes on growing and engendering light. After forty days, the
effect of the inner light of awe becomes apparent on the practitioner’s face, and
he, too, becomes an object of awe. Shaqīq implies that the fear that such a man
generates is more a feeling of reverence than an anxiety of malevolence.
Awe produces an emotional and behavioural profile which is different from
that of abstention. At this stage in the transformative process, the seeker is over-
whelmed with grief. He is tearful, distressed, sleepless, anxious; he prays con-
stantly and finds no pleasure in social engagements or in life in general. At the
same time, despite being distraught, he holds on fast to his spiritual practice. In
Shaqīq’s words:

All this time his remembrance [of God] (dhikr) does not abate and his grati-
tude (shukr) does not diminish. Fear has dispelled indolence. He does not
get weary, he does not sit idle, he does not tire.
(p. 19, ll. 11–13)

For the beholder, says Shaqīq, this is a very high stage. During these two prac-
tices, each maintained for forty days, the sincere seeker has achieved an elevated
rank in the public’s eye. This social observation suggests, no doubt, that, as a
by-product of his effort, the seeker becomes a charismatic, a holy man. Shaqīq
reiterates his former advice,

If he wishes, he can hold on to it till the day he dies; if he wishes, he can

move on, without losing his former achievements, to the stage of longing
for Paradise.

Longing for Paradise

For Shaqīq, this stage, if adhered to for another term of forty days, results in an
even loftier transformation. The practice here is to contemplate the everlasting
bliss of Paradise and its delights, such as the black-eyed beauties (al-ḥūr al-ʿīn),
that await the blessed ones. As earlier, here too – when the practitioner, in
­earnest commitment, disciplines his self to endure the state of longing and its
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   177
practical requirements, God rewards him by implanting the light of longing in
his heart. The stronger he sustains the practice, the stronger this inner light
becomes. Eventually, after forty days,

[God] brings the light of longing in his heart to completion, so that the heart
becomes overwhelmed by longing. [This state takes over] and makes him
forget his [former state of] fear, so now he does not need to maintain it
anymore, although the light of fear does not diminish, nor does it leave him.
(20, ll. 1–4)

The behavioural pattern of the seeker at this stage again changes. His evolving
features now are generosity, attentiveness, sincerity, compassion and detach-
ment; life’s struggles and vicissitudes do not grieve or bother him. Thus,

When you see him, he is always laughing, rejoicing in what he has. He is

neither miserable nor bountiful, he is not a slanderer, he does not indulge in
faultfinding, and does not speak ill of people. He is the one [known as] the
constantly fasting, the constantly standing up [at night for prayer]
(al-ṣawwām al-qawwām).
(20, ll. 7–8)

This state exhibits light-hearted features that differ from the gloominess of the
previous state of fear. As for its hierarchical position, it is “a stage higher and
more noble than the stage of fear” (20, l. 9). But here, too, its temporality is
clearly stated in the by now familiar advice,

If he wishes, he may stay in this stage till he dies; and if he wishes, he may
move on to the stage of the love of God (al-maḥabba li ‘llāh).
(l. 10)

Love of God
The highest, most noble, and most splendid is the stage of loving God. Not
everyone attains this stage. It is reserved for those whose heart has become
strengthened by certitude ( yaqīn) and whose acts have been purified of blem-
ishes and sins. As in previous stages, the light of love overrides all the lights of
the previous stages, though they do not disappear or diminish. The intensity of
the love for God that fills the heart outshines the lesser lights of abstention, fear,
and longing, so that the seeker becomes oblivious of them. This stage starts with
the following practice: the seeker motivates his heart to love all that God loves
and to detest all that God detests. The beginning of this stage, too, is a self-
willed practice that, when carried out with sincerity, is complemented with a
corresponding God-inspired love whose light increases in the heart. Outwardly,
this results in the practitioner himself becoming an object of love for both angels
and human beings. The consolidation of this state brings about further changes
178   Polarity
in character and behaviour: he becomes beloved, noble, intimate, mature, gentle,
composed, and magnanimous, and he refrains from vile deeds and avoids leader-
ship (riʾāsa).45

When you see him, he is always smiling, patient, dignified, courteous,

tactful, never gloomy, always bearing good news, avoiding sin, opposing
liars, is never heard [to say anything] except what God loves. He is loved by
all who hear him or see him. This is due to God’s love for him.
(21, ll. 4–7)

Life with God

A short addendum by Shaqīq to Ādāb al-ʿibādāt, titled A Chapter on the Stages
of Sincerity (Bāb manāzil al-ṣidq) and described by Nwyia, the editor, as “ver-
sion abrégée”,46 highlights the mystical climax of this discipline. Here, the
author emphasizes the fact that not all who follow this path arrive at its ultimate
destination. The purpose of this emphasis is to distinguish between three groups
of seekers: those who do not go beyond the (combined) stage of abstention and
fear – they are apparently attached to their asceticism; those who do not go
beyond the stage of longing for Paradise – they seem to remain attached to their
eschatological aspirations; and those who move beyond all these stages and
reach God. Of the latter, Shaqīq says:

They become [held] in God’s repose and mercy. Their hearts become
attached to their Lord, and, when immersed in Him, they delight in secret
discourse with Him (munājātihi). In their hearts they are presented with His
mercy and kindness for which they aspire. It is He who takes over their
hearts. It is He who, in their lifetime ( fī ‘l-dunyā) becomes their compan-
ion, their peace of mind, their joy and the delight of their hearts.
(21, ll. 20–2)

This last paragraph describes the culmination of the process of transformation

in a way that has become characteristic of early and later mystical lore in
Islam. In fact, Shaqīq’s two treatises as a whole contain most, if not all, of the
ingredients of later descriptions. Written in a condensed yet authoritative pat-
tern, they reflect a structured prescription that cannot be seen as simply
“immédiate”, as Nwyia would have it.47 Shaqīq’s description of the stages of
transformation, when compared with later compilations, may lack in detail and
vocabulary, but does not lack a perspective based on sustained practical
experience.

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s Ranks of Worshippers

A somewhat more expanded description, based on a terminology similar, though
not identical, to Shaqīq’s, was presented by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī in The Ranks
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   179
of Worshippers According to Their Worship (Manāzil al-ʿibād mina ‘l-ʿibāda).48
In a florid style, and with copious references to Qurʾān and Ḥadīth, al-Tirmidhī
outlines seven progressive stages (manāzil):49 repentance (tawba), abstention
(zuhd), animosity towards the nafs (ʿadāwat al-nafs), love (maḥabba), cutting
off the base inclination (qaṭʿ al-hawā), fear (khashya), and proximity [to God]
(qurba). He, too, suggests an interaction between human discipline and divine
help with emphasis on the latter – this is a sine qua non in any transformational
process. For him, too, the ultimate stage is a mystical proximity to God rather
than an eschatological bliss. According to al-Tirmidhī’s scheme, too, the locus
of inner transformation is the heart in which God invests His lights, and its
external manifestation is the changes that take place in character, behaviour, and
social esteem. Finally, he, too, suggests that only a few cross all stages and reach
the ultimate, mystical, state of nearness to God. Most seekers remain attached to
one of the lesser stages. Accordingly, al-Tirmidhī distinguishes between three
categories of men: The mystic, whom he describes as “confined by God” (ḥabīs
Allāh); the “intermingled” (mukhallaṭ),50 who is confined by desires (ḥabīs
al-shahawāt), and the infidel, who is confined by Satan (ḥabīs al-shayṭān) (103,
ll. 9–10). Here is a passage culled from his description of those few who make it
to the seventh stage:

God has servants who have crossed the [sixth station] crying out to Him,
seeking refuge in Him from the tyranny of the base inclination, for it is
alive in them. God then looks at them with respect, since He knows how
utterly sincere they are in their devotion to Him. He then lifts the veil from
them and reveals to them His Glory, and all intermediaries between Him
and them are removed. He pulls down their selves’ desires, and their base
inclinations collapse lifeless […] At this point God takes command over
their affairs. He places them under His wing and, for the rest of their lives,
makes them in charge of His affairs. He [Himself] educates and watches
over them and does not delegate this to anyone of His creation […] They
stand in front of their Lord looking out for His decrees [that unfold in] the
vicissitudes [of their lives], and they go through them in joy and cheerful-
ness, swifter than an arrow. [This is] because after their inclinations and
selves had died, they were revived in God. They are free and noble, the
freemen of the Compassionate One (muḥarrarū al-raḥmān).51 He has freed
them from enslavement to their inclination and has released them from its
captivity […] He joined them, and they became joined, the life [of inner
struggle] expired and they stopped observing the self. In the seas of know-
ledge, fluttering under His government, they surrender to Him seeking His
companionship. [They are] in the great Courtyard52 till they become strong
by Him […] and glorified in His glory. And they become intoxicated by
His favour.53

These prescriptions portray a rather radical outlook on spiritual achievement and

moral merit. The beginning of the transformative journey is observed from the
180   Polarity
vantage point of its end. Each stage is but a gateway to a higher one. The
achievements at each stage are prone to becoming repetitive and as such, from
the point of view of their transformative energy, they are mechanical and
­lifeless. At every stage of the journey the seekers are exposed to the danger of
self-identification: the nafs, rather than being defeated by the ascetical prac-
tices and devotional experiences, ascribes them to herself and consequently
becomes gratified and inflated.54 Yet an end is envisaged, a stage at which the
seeker can relax and give over his constant vigilance and inner struggle for a
true mystical experience. He then reaches a stage that is beyond the arena of
human effort. In fact, the transformation here is characterized by the ease with
which acts of worship that had previously demanded combative effort are now
attained. At this stage the practitioner is consumed by the intoxicating power
of an intimate relationship with God. This intimacy, which reveals itself in
polar feelings of love and awe, manipulates him to such an extent that the
­constraining physical features and the earthly, or fiery, temptations fall away
without effort.
This vision of the apex of the transformative process is apparent also in the
following passage by Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, a ninth-century mystic from
Baghdād:

Know, that those who have attained God and are near to Him, who have in
truth tasted the love of God […] have [gone through the stages of] piety,
abstinence, perseverance, sincerity, truthfulness, trust, love, longing,
intimacy and other good qualities […] All this is with them, dwelling in
their natures, hidden in their heart of hearts […] This is their nourishment
and their routine […] Having attained [all these stages and qualities], they
no longer feel worship and practice to be an effort, since it dwells within
them at all times and in every state […] And even in performing their reli-
gious duties they experience neither heaviness nor exertion, for their
hearts have become overwhelmed by God’s nearness. Thus, they worship
Him without burden or labor […] Their hearts are occupied only with
God, for they have been overcome by God’s nearness and love, by the
longing for Him, the fear of Him, their reverence [for Him] and their
exaltation of Him.55

Formulae of mystical elevation

Beyond the disciplinary stages that address the psychological and ascetic aspects
of self-transformation, there exist, according to Ṣūfī authors, further stages that
are experienced, mystically, in the realms of the Divine. These mystical stages,
which still retain a progressive outlook, are seldom described in detail, unless in
(often later) visionary literature of the type written by Najm al-Dīn Kubrā.56 In
early writings, however, as well as in the didactic compilatory literature of the
fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries, there seems to be a tendency to condense
these elevated stages into formulae, rather than descriptions. The following
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   181
statement by Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, recorded by al-Qushayrī, is a fine example
of such a formulaic description:

When God befriends one of His servants, He opens for him the gate of
Remembrance (dhikr). When he finds pleasure in Remembrance, He opens
for him the gate of Nearness (qurb). Then He lifts him up to the assemblies
of Intimacy with Him (al-uns bihi). Then He seats him on the throne of
Oneness (tawḥīd). Then He lifts the veils in front of him and takes him into
the abode of Singularity ( fardāniyya) and reveals to him His Majesty and
Might (al-jalāl wal-ʿaẓama). When his sight falls on God’s Majesty and
Might, he remains without inclination (hawā). Then the servant becomes
chronically lost [in God] (zamīnan fāniyan) and he remains within God’s pro-
tection. He then becomes free from the claims of his self.57

The ascending stages according to this formula start with the practice of
‘remembrance’ (dhikr).58 Based on a Qurʾānic verse, remembrance of God is
understood to motivate God’s counter remembrance of the seeker: “Remember
Me and I shall remember you” (Q. 2:152). From this mindful endeavour ‘to
remember’, ensue, as Divine acts, mystical states, in which the seeker loses all
initiative and is totally passive: he is taken effortlessly into the Divine realms of
nearness, intimacy, oneness, singularity, majesty, and might. When s/he experi-
ences the numinosity of these states, or stages, the transformation of the self
becomes complete. The self and its allies, it appears, are incapable of subsisting
in such experiential altitudes. In the preceding citation, the verbs baqiya – ‘he
remains without inclination’ – and faniya – ‘he is lost’, allude to the com-
plementary states of fanāʾ and baqāʾ, annihilation and subsistence, which are,
according to most authors, among the highest mystical states to be attained or
recorded.59
The passive voice is highly suggestive in this type of description. It repres-
ents those stages in the transformative journey in which the initiative has been
taken away from the seeker. In contrast to the ascetic phases in which an active
war with the self is waged by means of determination and effort, the mystic now
takes no active part in the powerful process through which he is shifted. He has
become, as the Ṣūfī idiom goes, “as a corpse in the hands of the washers”. In
The Journey of the Friends of God (Sīrat al-awliyāʾ), al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
offers a dynamic description of these supreme stages:

[God] places [the friend] at a rank, on condition that he should stay put till
he is straightened. When, in the place of Nearness (maḥall al-qurba), he
adheres to this condition and does not wish to carry out any act, he is trans-
ferred to the realm of Might (mulk al-jabarūt) to be straightened. There, his
self is vanquished and subdued by the power of Might till she withers and
becomes humble. From there he is transferred to the realm of Sovereignty
(mulk al-sulṭān) to be improved […] From there he is transferred to the
realm of Majesty (mulk al-jalāl) to be educated, from there he is transferred
182   Polarity
to the realm of Beauty (mulk al-jamāl) to be cleansed, then to the realm of
Might (mulk al-ʿaẓama) to be purified, then to the realm of Splendor (mulk
al-bahāʾ) to be perfumed, then to the realm of Joy (mulk al-bahja) to be
expanded, then to the realm of Awe (mulk al-hayba) to be reared, then to
the realm of Compassion (mulk al-raḥma) to be moistened and strengthened
and encouraged, then to the realm of Singularity (mulk al-fardiyya) to be
nourished – Kindness nourishes him, Gentleness embraces him and holds
him, and Love draws him near. Longing brings him close and then draws
him near, then brings him close. [God’s] will brings him to Him, and then
the most Gracious and Powerful welcomes him. He brings him near, then
draws him close, then brings him near, then draws him close, then rejects
him, then educates him, then communes with him, then lets go of him, then
grips him. [From then on], wherever he is, he is in His Grip […] When he
reaches this place, all attributes end, and all discourse and expressions end.
This is the ultimate arrival place of the hearts and minds.60

Although this can be seen as a somewhat expanded description of a mystical

ascent, it is still a schematic one that condenses the last transformative mystical
phases of the journey into a formulaic sequence. The transposition from one
divine realm to another does not seem to be capricious or random. It is designed,
through a combination of shock and affection, to bring about a fundamental
change in the seeker’s mode of existence. Each realm has its specific trans-
formative impact. But throughout the duration of these vacillating experiences,
the seeker must remain completely passive. His own self cannot participate in
the process, because, in these last stages of transformation, she becomes
annulled and powerless, taken over by a transcendent agent.
As for the new mode of existence in the wake of such a lofty experience,
mystical literature claims that, for the few who reach the ultimate stages, the
ordinary and the transcendent come together. These few are the ‘friends of God’,
the awliyāʾ.61 This mode of being is exemplified by a ḥadīth qudsī, an extra-
Qurʾānic divine dictum, which is probably the most frequently recorded tradi-
tion in Ṣūfī literature. According to this well-documented tradition, God says:

My servant does not come near to me by performing [anything but?] my

commandments, but he comes [ever] near[er] to me by performing volun-
tary acts of worship (nawāfil) so that I love him. And when I love him, I
become his ear, his sight, his tongue, his hand, his foot and his heart. He
hears by Me, he sees by Me, he speaks by Me, he strikes by Me, he walks
by Me, he grasps by Me. This is a servant whose mind has died away in the
Supreme Mind and his greedy movements have calmed down in His grip.62

When full transformation is attained, even the most elementary and ordinary
activities are carried out through God and not through the nafs. This, in sum, is
the nucleus of the teaching of self-transformation: practice and discipline have a
necessary but insufficient role to play; ultimately, it is a rare manifestation of the
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   183
blend of human effort with divine grace. The following aphorism (ḥikma, word
of wisdom) of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, a thirteenth-century Egyptian Ṣūfī, may aptly
sum up and seal this chapter:

If you were to be united with Him

only after the extinction of your vices
and the effacement of your pretensions,
you would never be united with Him!
Rather, when He wants to unite you to Himself,
He covers your attribute with His Attribute
and hides your feature with His Feature.
Thus He unites you to Himself
by virtue of what comes from Him to you,
not by virtue of what goes from you to Him.63

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in David Shulman and Guy
G.  Stroumsa (eds), Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 195–215.
For the use of the grammatical feminine to ‘self’ (nafs), see Chapter 2, n. 41;
Chapter 12, n. 50 and the Introduction, n. 47.
  2 On nafs in Islamic philosophy, see, for example, Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, Risāla fī
al-nafs, in Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafiyya, ed. M.ʿA.H. Abu Rīḍah, Vol. 1 (Cairo,
1950), 273–80; al-Fārābī in Richard Walzer, Al-Fārābī on the Perfect State (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985), 165ff., 382ff.; Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ
wa-khillān al-wafāʾ, ed. Kh. Al-Zirikli, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿArabiyyah, 1928),
325ff. (The 23rd epistle); Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-nafs [al-fann al-sādis min Kitāb
al-shifāʾ], eds I. Madkur, G.C. Anawati and S. Zayd (Cairo, 1395/1975); al-ʿĀmirī in
E.K. Rowson, A Muslim Philosopher on the Soul and Its Fate: Al-ʿĀmiri’s Kitāb
al-amad ʿalā l-abad (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1988), 106–7
et passim; Aḥmad ibn Muḥmmad Ibn Miskawayh, Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (Beirut:
al-Jāmiʿah al-Amrīkīyah fī-Bairut, 1966), 2ff. [= Zurayk (ed.), Beirut 1968, 5ff.], also
in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Dirāsat wa-nuṣūṣ fī ‘l-falsafa wa-l-ʿulūm ʿinda ‘l-ʿarab
(Beirut: Dār al-madār al-islāmī, 1981), 59 (Arabic text); see also Alexander Altmann
and S.M. Stern, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century
(London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 39ff., 108ff. et passim. For nafs as equi-
valent to psyche, see the Arabic translations of Aristotle’s De Anima in ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān Badawī, Aristūtālis fī al-nafs (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahḍah al-Miṣrīya,
1954), 3–88; also, Ibn al-Nadīm in Bayard Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim: A Tenth-
Century Survey of Muslim Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970),
604–5; F.E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus: The Oriental Translation and Commentaries
of the Aristotelian Corpus (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968), 40–5; Helmut Gätje, Studien zur
Uberlieferung der aristotelischen Psychologie im Islam (Heidelberg: C. Winter,
1971); Rafael Ramón Guerrero, La recepcion arabe del DE ANIMA de Aristoteles:
Al-Kindī y Al-Fārābī (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,
1992); Rüdiger Arnzen, Aristoteles’ DE ANIMA: Eine verlorene spätantike Para-
phrase in arabischer und persischer Uberlieferung (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998). On the
semantic complexity of the term ‘psyche’, see the discussion of A.M. Lorca,
“Prologo”, in Salvador Gómez Nogales, La Psicologia de Averroes: Commentario
184   Polarity
­al-Libro sobre el Alma De Aristóteles (Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia, 1987), 33ff.
  3 Ibn Sīnā in F. Rahman, Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic Text), Being the Psychological
Part of Kitāb al- Shifāʾ (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 6; cf. Ikhwān
al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, ed. al-Zirikli, Vol. 3, 278–9: “As for the nafs, namely, the spirit
(rūḥ), it is a celestial luminous substance … it does not die nor is it annihilated, it
subsists eternally.”
  4 Note that medieval philosophy, too, recognizes inferior aspects of soul. For the tripar-
tite division of soul/nafs in philosophical literature, see, for example, Ikhwān
al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, ed. al-Zirikli, Vol. 1, 241–3 and Vol. 2, 325ff.; also, L.E. Goodman
(trans.) Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān: A Philosophical Tale (New York: Twayne
Publishers, 1972), 170; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn Ṭufayl, Risālat
Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān fī asrār al-ḥikma al-mushriqiyya, ed. and trans. L. Gauthier (Beirut:
1936), 65–6 (= Goodman 1972, 124).
  5 See Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Rawḍat al-ṭālibīn
wa-ʿumdat al-sālikīn (Beirut: Dār al-Nahdạh al-Hạdīthah, 1966), 60 (Ch. 6); also,
al-Ghazālī Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Vol. 3 (Beirut: Dār al-qalam, n.d.), 5 (= Bayān maʿnā
al-nafs wa ‘l-rūḥ wa ‘l-qalb wa ‘l-ʿaql); cf. al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla (Beirut:
1410/1990), 86–7: “The nafs of a thing, in ordinary language, means its existence
(wujūd). But […] the [Ṣūfīs] […] mean by nafs those characteristics of man that are
deficient and those of his qualities and deeds that are condemnable.” Note the tend-
ency of some later Ṣūfī authors to synthesize philosophical and Ṣūfī terminologies in
their discourse on nafs – see, for example, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī
(d. 587/1191), Kitāb al-lamaḥāt, ed. E. Maalouf (Beirut: Dār al-nahār li-al-nashr,
1969), 116ff.; Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240),
Kitāb ʿuqlat al-mustawfiz, in Kleinerer Schriften des Ibn al-ʿArabī, ed. H.S. Nyberg
(Leiden: Brill, 1919), 95–6.
  6 See E.E. Calverley, “Nafs”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, especially 881, sec. 5. This
article is a reprint, with bibliographical updating by I.R. Netton of the first edition of
the Encyclopaedia of lslam – see EI1, Vol. 3, 827–30; see also Calverley, “Doctrines
of the Soul (nafs and rūḥ) in Islam”, Muslim World 33 (1943): 254–64.
  7 See, however, the fine discussion on the complexity of the term nafs in the mystical
teaching of Sahl al-Tustarī, a third/ninth-century Ṣūfī, in Gerhard Böwering, The Mys-
tical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’ānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl
al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 243ff., and note the references cited
in nn 48–50; see also Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 112ff. et passim; for a ‘negative’
psyche versus a ‘positive’ pneuma in Gnosticism, see Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt
des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Orientalisches Seminar der Universität Bonn, 1961),
31ff., and cf. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the
Beginnings of Christianity (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1963), 124.
  8 See, for example, B.R. Von Schlegell (trans.), Principles of Sufism by al-Qushayri
(Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press, 1990), 97, also Sara Sviri, review of “B. R. von Schlegell,
trans. Principles of Sufism by al-Qusharyi”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
19 (1995), 280; note also n. 5 above, the translation of al-Ghazālī, Rawḍat al-ṭālibīn, 60.
  9 See Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-zuhd al-kabīr, ed. ʿĀmir Aḥmad
Ḥaydar (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-kutub al-thaqāfiyya, 1987), 156–7 and cf. 163: “He
who fights a holy war is he who fights his self” (al-mujāhid man jāhada nafsahu); see
also al-Ḥāriṯ b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Risālat al-mustarshidīn, ed. ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū
Ghadda (Ḥalab: Maktabat al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Islāmiyya, 1964), 47; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Kitāb al-riyāḍa wa-adab al-nafs, eds A.J. Arberry and A.H. Abdel-Kadir (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1947), 26, and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Manāzil
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   185
al-ʻubbād min al-ʻibāda, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Sāʾiḥ (Cairo: ­al-Maktab at-Taqāfī,
1988), 76, and the references cited there.
10 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, 44: “Accordingly, ʿUmar
said in his sermon: ‘The Adversary is with this world; he lies in ambush with the base
inclination and employs his craftiness by means of desires’ ”; cf. van Ess, Die
Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 57ff. For a comparative study of Satan as
the Adversary, see J.B. Russell, The Devil: Perception of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive
Christianity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 200ff.; Alexander
Altmann, “The Gnostic Background of the Rabbinic Adam Legends”, The Jewish
Quarterly Review 35 (1945): 371–91; P.J. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption:
Iblis in Sufi Psychology (Leiden: Brill, 1983).
11 For the prophetic tradition on which the distinction between the lesser holy war
(al-jihād al-aṣghar) and the greater war relies, see R. Gramlich (trans.), Die Nahrung
der Herzen: Abū Ṭālib al-Makkīs Qūt al-Qulūb, Vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994), 32
(32.46–47); also, ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Hujwirī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson
(London: Luzac & Co., 1976 [1936]), 200; cf. A.J. Arberry (trans.), The Doctrine of
the Sufis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979 reprint), 88 (Ch. 40); on
Ṣūfī ‘psychomachia’ and its antecedents in Late Antiquity, see Bernd Radtke, “Psy-
chomachia in der Sufik”, in Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions from Mazdaism
to Sufism, ed. P. Gignoux (Paris, 1992), 135ff.
12 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, 78:
Angels are devoid of desires, limbs, bodies, hollow [parts] and needs. They need
no food, no drink, and no clothes […] They are thus liberated from the harms and
needs that beset human beings, as well as from the tricks of the Adversary. In
accordance with [divine] governance (tadbīr), God created them by means of His
saying, ‘Be!’ His dealings with them are in the realm of Might (mulk al-jabarūt)
and their locations (maqāwim) are in the realm of Majesty (mulk al-jalāl). As for
us, He brought us into creation by His hand, and His dealings with us are in the
realm of Compassion and Mercy (mulk al-raʾfa wa ‘l-raḥma), and our locations are
in the realm of Love (mulk al-maḥabba). Angels are bound by one state only which
they never leave nor are they ever moved out of. But human beings […] are moved
from one state to another, and all their states are service [to God].
(for the unusual plural form maqāwim, cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat
al-awliyāʾ, 37 (= Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane [trans. and eds], The Concept of
Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī [Rich-
mond: Curzon Press, 1996, 96–9]); cf. also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl fī
ma’rifat Aḥādīth al-rasūl (Istanbul, 1294/1878), 16, and note the prophetic tradition
(l. 5), “The believer is nobler [in the eyes] of God than the [most] intimate angels”
(inna ‘l-muʾmin akram ʿalā ‘llāh min al-malāʾika al-muqarrabīn), for a version of
which, see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane
(Leiden: Brill, 1933–1969), 6, 3; see also al-Ḥārith ibn Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb
al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. Margareth Smith (London: Luzac, 1940), 208–9; ʿAlī
ibn ʿUthmān al-Jullabī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson (London:
Luzac, 1936 [1976]), 239–41; cf., however, al-Ghazālī, al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī sharḥ
maʻānī asmāʼ Allāh al-ḥusnā, ed. F.A. Shehadi (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1971), 45
[= Nazih Daher and David B. Burrell (trans), Al-Ghazālī: the ninety-nine beautiful
names of God (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1992), 3], also Ikhwān
al-safāʾ Rasāʾil, Vol. 1, 359–60.
13 For women as abdāl, see, for example, Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futuḥāt al-makkīyah, ed.
ʿUthmān Yahya, Vol. 13 (Cairo: al Hayʾa al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma lil-kitāb, 1990), 46–7;
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, “al-Khabar al-dāll ʿalā wujūd al-quṭb wal-awtād wal-nujabāʾ
wal-abdāl” in al-Ḥāwī lil-fatāwī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1403/1983), 10–11.
186   Polarity
14 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawāddir al-ʿusūl, 70 (bottom):
They are named abdāl for two reasons: firstly, because whenever one of them dies
God replaces him with another (abdala makānahu) to complete the forty. And sec-
ondly, because they have transformed (baddalū) their bad qualities and have
trained their selves till the beauty of their qualities have become the ornaments of
their actions.
cf. Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb fī muʿāmalat al-maḥbūb (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa
al-Maymūnīya, 1310/1893), 86, ll. 12–14:
The seeker does not become a ‘substitute’ (badal) unless he substitutes ( yubaddilu)
the attributes of sovereignty (rubūbiyya) with the attributes of servanthood
(ʿubūdiyya), the qualities of demons with the characteristics of believers, the nature
of beasts (bahāʾim) with the characteristics of pneumatics (rūḥāniyyūna) […]
[Only] then he becomes a close substitute ( fa-ʿindahā kāna badalan muqarraban).
15 See, for example, Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Jawāmiʿ ādāb al-ṣūfiyya (Jerusalem:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem Academic Press, 1976), 70–2, and the
sources mentioned in the footnotes there; also, al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 86, ll. 9–14
(Ch. 25); al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, 5; for a striking visionary’s description, see
Najm al-Din al-Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-Ğamal, ed. Fritz Meier (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner,
1957), 25–6:
The nafs inciting to evil […] is dark. If remembrance [of God] falls on her, it becomes
like a lamp shedding light in a dark house. Then she becomes blaming, for she sees that
the house is full of polluted creatures, such as dogs, pigs, cheetahs, leopards, asses,
oxen and elephants—all the hateful things in existence. Then she strives to chase them
away […] To do so, she needs to practice the remembrance of God and to repent con-
tinuously, till the remembrance of God overpowers them and chases them away. Then
she becomes close to the serene self, yet she must never stop striving […] When the
divine power descends, and Truth is revealed, then the nafs calms down.
16 See A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical Development
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 129 et passim; also, Ibn Abī
al-Dunyā, Man ‘āsha baʿda al-mawt, ed. ʿA.A. Jab Allah (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-
ʿilmiyya, 1987); lkhwān al-safāʾ 1928, 3, 278; al-Ghazālī 1407/1987, 27–9; al-Suyūṭī,
Kitāb al-Durar al-ḥisān fī al-baʿath wa-naʿīm al-jinān (n.d.), 23ff.
17 See, for example, I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam (Heidelberg: C. Winter,
1910), 154–5 (Ch. 4/5); Christopher Melchert, “The Transition from Asceticism to
Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century c.e.”, Studia Islamica 83 (1996):
51–70, and note esp. 51: “A transition from Islamic asceticism to Islamic mysticism
has now become a scholarly commonplace.” See also, Introduction and Chapter 1.
18 See, for example, Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), Kitāb al-Zuhd wa-l-raqāʾiq, ed.
Ḥabīb al-Rahman al-Aʿẓami (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1386 h); Wakīʿ ibn
al-Jarrāḥ (d. 196/812) – see F. Sezgin, GAS, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 96–7; Asad
ibn Mūsā (d. 211/827), Kitāb al-zuhd, ed. R.G. Khoury (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1976); Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 240/855), Kitāb al-zuhd, ed. M.J. Sharaf (Alexandria: Dār
al-Fikr al-Jāmiʿī, 1980); Ibn Abī al-Dunyā (d. 280/894), Kitāb Dhamm al-Dunyā, ed.
Ella Almagor (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1984). For more bibliographical data,
see Sezgin, GAS, Vol. 1, 97, 145, 153, 355f.; also, al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-zuhd al-kabīr,
ed. Ḥaydar, 47ff. (editor’s Introduction).
19 For sections and traditions on zuhd in canonical Ḥadīth compilations, see Wensinck
1943, 2, 348–9; for zuhd in non-Ṣūfī compilations, see, for example, al-Jāḥiẓ
(d. 255/869), Kitāb al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn, ed. Hārūn ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1367/1948), 3, 125–202; Ibn Qutayba (d. c.270/884),
‘Uyūn al-akhbār (Cairo: al-hayʾa al-ʿāmma lil-kuttāb, 1346/1928), 2, 261–375.
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   187
20 For later works on zuhd, see, for example, al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066), Kitāb al-zuhd
al-kabīr, ed. Ḥaydar; Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), Dhamm al-hawā, ed. A.ʻA.
al-Salām ʻAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyah, 1987).
21 For asceticism and early mysticism, see Chapters 1, 2, 3 and the Introduction in this
monograph.
22 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 145: “Know, that the nafs is a
consort to the spirit (rūḥ) in the body. Both are winds (rīḥāni), the one heavenly, the
other earthly. The spirit is a heavenly energy (lit. wind) [emanating] from the energy of
life, and the nafs is an earthly energy [emanating] from the life [force] that was given to
the earth”; cf. Radtke, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 187ff.
23 See also Chapter 2.
24 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, 37–8.
25 According to the well-known ḥadīth, “Hell-fire is surrounded by desires” (ḥuffat
al-nār bi ‘l-shahawāt) – see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indices de la tradition
Musulmane, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1936–1988), 479; see also Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz,
Kitāb al-ṣidq (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 62; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 145; Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality, and
Writings of al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth Century Mystic with an Edition
and Translation of his Writings (London: Luzac, 1962), 58 (Arabic text = 179
English trans.).
26 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, 34–9, and cf. 1975, 3; cf. Böwering, The
Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, 253ff.
27 Note that ḥayya means both ‘alive’ and ‘snake’; hence, anticipating the image of ‘a
viper’ (al-afʿā), Kubrā’s expression contains a double nuance: the nafs, which is like
a snake, or a viper, never dies (with thanks to GRG).
28 See al-Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-Ğamal, 81 (Arabic text, para. 164).
29 See more, Chapter 2.
30 On him, see Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfıyah, ed. Johannes Pedersen
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 54–9; Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique:
nouvel essai sur le lexique technique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq,
1970), 213–31. According to al-Sulamī, a fourth–fifth/tenth–eleventh-century hagio-
grapher, Shaqīq may have been “the first in the region of Khurāsān who talked on the
science of the changing states (aḥwāl)” (54, 1.5).
31 This treatise was edited by Paul Nwyia in 1973, based on a Topkapı unicum manu-
script. For bibliographical data and analysis, see Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et
langage mystique, 213–31.
32 Hence the distinction that is often made in mystical literature between “the general
public” or “the masses” (al-ʿāmma) and the Ṣūfīs, sometimes referred to as the
gnostic elite (al-khāṣṣa, ahl al-maʿrifa) – see, for example, Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb
al-lumaʿ, ed. R.J. Nicholson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1914), 11ff. (= Eng. Abstract, 4f.);
also, al-Suhrawardī, Abū al-Najīb ʿAbd al-Qādir Kitāb ādāb al-murīdīn, ed.
Menaḥēm Milson (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1978), 13–15, and Menahem
Milson (trans), A Sufi Rule for Novices: Kitāb ādāb al-murīdīn (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press 1975), 34–5.
33 Hence the accusation, often levelled against Ṣūfīs and ascetics by Orthodox writers,
of indulging in exaggerated practices above and beyond the prophetic sunna—see, for
example, Ibn al-Jawzī, Naqd al-ʻilm wa-al-ʻulamāʼ, aw, Talbīs Iblīs, eds
M.A. al-Khānjī and M.M. al-Dimashqī (Cairo: Maṭba’at al-Saʿādah, 1340/1921),
152ff., 159ff., 174ff., and note there the admonition of a ninth-century Ḥanbalī master
against reading books by al-Muḥāsibī: “These are books of innovations and errors.
Follow the tradition [of the prophet], in it you will find what will suffice you” (177).
For more details, see Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the
Life and Teaching of Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, a.d 781–a.d 857 (London: Sheldon
Press, 1935 [1977]), 256.
188   Polarity
34 Note that there exists an even earlier sketch of a progressive discipline, attributed to
Ibrāhīm ibn Adham (d. c.159/776), who, according to al-Sulamī, was Shaqīq’s
teacher. Ibrāhīm ibn Adham’s formula of transformation runs as follows:
Know, that you will never reach the rank of the pious (ṣāliḥūn) unless you over-
come six obstacles. First, that you close the gate of pleasure and open the gate of
constriction; second, that you close the gate of pride and open the gate of humility;
third, that you close the gate of leisure and open the gate of effort; fourth, that you
close the gate of sleep and open the gate of sleeplessness; fifth, that you close the
gate of wealth and open the gate of poverty; sixth, that you close the gate of expec-
tation and open the gate of readiness for death.
(See al-Sulamī, Tabaqāt, 21–2; also, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 98–9)
35 For Ṣūfī teachings on hunger and its merits, see, for example, al-Makkī 1893, 1, 73,
ll. 11–12: “Fasting is the key to abstaining from the world, for by it the nafs is denied
the food and drink that she desires and enjoys” (see also Gramlich 1994, 4, 112, ana-
lytischer Index, “Fasten”); al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 140–4 (= von Schlegell, Principles
of Sufism, 79–84); cf. van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 115ff.
36 Cf. al-Kharrāz, a third/ninth-century Ṣūfī from Baghdād, in al-Kharrāz, The Book of
Truthfulness (Kitāb al-ṣidq), trans. A.J. Arberry (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1937), 75 (Arabic text): “Don’t you know […] that all states and qualities are but sta-
tions (manāzil) in which worshippers stay for a while before they move on to other
stations?” (cf. Arberry 1937 trans., 61).
37 It may also be associated with the Syriac term athliṭūtā, whose meanings range from
contest and struggle to martyrdom, see J. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dic-
tionary, 32 in Dukhrana online searchable version, Dukhrana Biblical Research
2006–2011.
38 That ascetic practices are performed in order to break behavioural patterns transpires
from a saying attributed to Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhabārī (d. 322/934): “Know, that the root
and foundation of the war with the nafs is to wean her of that to which she has
become accustomed” – see al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 99; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Kitāb al-riyāḍa:
If you wean the nafs, she will break and will stop pestering you […] For the nafs
has become used to pleasure and desire and to acting jointly with the inclination;
but if you wean her, she will become weaned. (105)
Note, however, that further on, al-Tirmidhī adds a note of caution: “If, after training
the nafs, you stop observing her, she might, as long as the desires are alive in her and
the inclination is upright, return to her previous habits” (120).
39 Cf. al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, eds ʿA.Ḥ. Maḥmūd and M.B. al-Sharīf (Cairo:
Dār al-maʿārif, n.d.) Chs. 26 and 27, 123ff. (= Richard Gramlich, Die Gaben Der Erk-
enntnisse Des ʻumar As-Suhrawardī (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), 193ff.); also,
al-Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-Ğamal, 59f. (Arabic text, para. 125); see Schimmel, Mystical
Dimensions, 101 and 103; for an interesting experience of chilla carried out and
documented recently by a modern woman, see Michaela M. Özelsel, Forty Days: The
Diary of a Traditional Solitary Sufi Retreat with an Accompanying Interdisciplinary
Scientific Commentary, trans. Andy Gaus (Boston, MA: Shambala, 1996).
40 Based on Ex. 24:18 and 34:28; cf. Jesus’s forty days’ fast in the wilderness –
Matthew 4:1–11; Mark, 1: 12–13; Luke 4: 1–13.
41 Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 324. Abraham Maimonides (d. 1237), the son of Moses
Maimonides, observes, too, that the Ṣūfī practice of forty days’ abstention from food and
sleep has been modeled upon biblical figures such as David, Joshua, and in particular
Moses, who says (Deut. 9:25), “So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and forty
nights that I fell down”; see Samuel Rosenblatt, The High Ways to Perfection of Abraham
Maimonides (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), 2, 322–3 and 394–5.
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   189
42 Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 324; cf. Böwering, The Mystical Vision, 259–60, citing
Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 282/896):
One who starves his carnal soul (nafs) diminishes his blood proportionately. In
proportion to his blood that is diminished by hunger ( jūʿ) the whispering [of the
Adversary?] (waswasa) is cut off from the heart (qalb). If a fool (majnūn) were to
starve his carnal soul he would become healthy (ṣaḥīḥ) [!]
cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futuḥāt al-makkīyah, ed. ʿUthmān Yahya, Vol. 13 (Cairo:
al-Hayʾa al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma li al-kitāb, 1990), 641–2.
43 For an early collection of traditions advocating the remembrance of death, see, for
example, Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-zuhd al-kabīr, ed. Ḥaydar, 90ff.
44 Cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: 1878), 343 (bottom): “The heart
of the human being is dense and coarse, and his nafs, due to her innate arrogance, is
impudent and defiant. When the lights of mystical knowledge (maʿrifa) descend,
density melts away, impudence and coarseness are wiped out, and the heart becomes
soft and tender”. Cf. also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 139, ll. 1–4:
When [the seeker] stops the continuous [practice of the] remembrance of
God, his heart hardens. This is because remembrance includes compassion from
God […] When compassion comes, the heart becomes moist and soft, the heat of
the nafs dies down and that compassion which descends upon the heart pulls her
up. Thus, the heart’s hardness and coarseness and roughness melt away.
45 For a critical description of ascetics who, in spite of their austere practices, have suc-
cumbed to, rather than harnessed, their self’s desire for leadership and renown
(riʾāsa), see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 116–17 (= Radtke and O’Kane,
The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 93ff.); cf. Ibn al-Jawzī, Naqd
al-ʻilm = Talbīs Iblīs 161; cf. the following saying attributed to Ruwaym ibn Aḥmad
(d. 302/915): “The self has a share in abstention from the world, because abstention
entails also relaxation, praise, laudation and eminence in the eyes of people” (see
al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ, 47).
46 Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 215, and 1973, 21.
47 Cf., however, Paul Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musulmans: Šaqīq
al-Balh̆ ī, Ibn ʻAṭā, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1973) [Introduction, 15]: “il nous
permet de remonter […] à une époque òu ce langage traduit 1’éxpérience d’une façon
immédiate […] sans aucune reconstruction”; see also Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et
langage mystique, 214.
48 This work, known also under the title Manāzil al-qāṣidīn ilā ‘llāh, has been pub-
lished in Cairo twice – first in 1977 by Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-Juyūshī, and then in
1988 by Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Sāʾiḥ. References in this chapter are to the 1988
edition.
49 The term manzila, employed by early writers, although never totally discarded, has
been conventionally replaced by the term maqām (plural form maqāmāt). The latter
has become the technical term for a stage on the mystical path achieved through
effort. It is usually contrasted with ḥāl, a mystical state that descends as divine
favour; see, for example, al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ, 41–72; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf
al-Maḥjūb, 180–3; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 56–8; al-Suhrawardī, Kitāb ādāb
al-murīdīn, 20–1 (= Milson, A Sufi Rule, 38–9); cf. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique
et langage mystique, 223; also, Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 109ff.; see also
Chapter 7 in this monograph.
50 This term is frequently used by al-Tirmidhī to denote a seeker in whose effort the
influence of the self and its associates commingles with spiritual aspirations; see, for
example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 48 (= Radtke and O’Kane, The
Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 115), and 1878, 260 (bottom),
where al-Tirmidhī states that “a little [religious] work [performed by an accomplished
190   Polarity
man] is far better than many years of toiling of the mukhallaṭ”; see also Chapter 12 in
this monograph, [n. 51]. For an interesting equivalent in the vocabulary of early
Christian pietists (in Greek), and, in particular, of Pseuso-Macarius, see Columba
Stewart, ‘Working the Earth of the Heart’: The Messalian Controversy In History,
Texts, and Language to A.D. 431 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 169ff., and esp.
175–7; cf. also “the mixing of the two soils” (ikhtilāṭ al- ṭīnatayn) in Shīʿism, see
M.A. Amir-Moezzi, “ ‘Seul l’homme de dieu est humain’: Théologie et anthropologie
mystique à travers l’exégèse imamite ancienne (aspects de l’imamologie duodécir-
naine IV)”, Arabica 45 (1998): 203.
51 This is an intriguing, ‘reversed’ association to the Qurʾānic idiom ʿibād al-raḥmān,
‘the slaves of the Compassionate’ (Q. 25:63); cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Masāʾil
ahl Sarakhs, fifth question in Radtke (ed.), Drei Schriften Schriften des Theosophen
von Tirmiḏ (Beirut: Steiner, 1992), 144, 1.20. For al-aḥrār al-kirām, see
Chapter 11.
52 The Arabic idiom al-Tirmidhī uses here should probably be read al-fināʾ, which is
orthographically identical with al-fanāʾ, a term conventionally meaning a mystical
experience of ‘annihilation’ (see n. 53). Contrary to the editor’s explanatory note on
p. 95, fanāʾ is not current in al-Tirmidhī’s vocabulary; for fināʾ, cf. al-Niffarī in
Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musulmans, 300.
53 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb manāzil al-ʻibād min al-ʻibāda, ed. A.ʿA. al-Sāʾiḥ
(Cairo: 1988), 93–5.
54 On the rigorous, introspective, and controversial path of blame, malāma, that was
designed to ceaselessly fight this tendency of the nafs, see Chapters 4 and 5 in this
monograph.
55 Al-Kharrāz, The Book of Truthfulness, trans. Arberry, 76–7 (Arabic text) and 61–2
(English trans.—modified and slightly paraphrased); cf. al-Tirmidhī’s simile of an
easy floating ship in Chapter 9, [n. 40].
56 See note 15; for descriptions of mystical experiences, see, for example, Henry
Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, trans. Nancy Person (Boulder, CO:
Shambhala, 1978), 76ff. and 112; on the visions and experiences of Rūzbihān Baqlī
(d. 605/1209), see C.A. Ernst, Rūzbihān Baqlī: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Saint-
hood In Persian Sufism (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), 66ff. et passim.
57 See al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 263.
58 On dhikr, see, for example, L. Gardet, “Dhikr”, EI2, Vol. 2 (1965): 230–3; S. de
Beaurecueil, “Memoire de l’homme ou memoire de Dieu? (Le dhikr chez
ʿAbdullāh Ansārī)”, MIDEO 22 (1994): 73–94; Sara Sviri, The Taste of Hidden
Things: Images on the Sufi Path (Inverness, CA: Golden Sufi Center, 1997),
124–44; Muḥammad Isa Waley, “Contemplative Disciplines in Early Persian
Sufism”, in The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, Vol. 1 (Oxford: One-
world, 1999), 497–548.
59 See, for example, al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, 242ff., and note that, according to
al-Hujwīrī, al-Kharrāz was the first to explain these mystical states; cf. al-Kubrā,
Fawāʾiḥ al-Ğamal, 36f., 40f., and esp. 48 (paras 78–9, 86 and 98, Arabic section) et
passim; and see Chapter 7.
60 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, 1992, 35–6 (cf. Radtke and O’Kane, 1996, 94–5). For more
on this, see Chapter 10.
61 See, for example, the saying attributed to Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī (d. 260/874):
What is the most wondrous sign of the mystic? That he eats with you, drinks with
you, jests with you, buys from you, sells to you, while his heart is in the Holy
Kingdom. This is the most wondrous sign.
(al-Sulamī 1945, 91–2)
 The self (nafs) and her transformation   191
62 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 34 (cf. Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of
Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 92–3); cf. al-Junayd in Abdel-Kader, The Life,
Personality and Writing of al-Junayd, 33 (Arabic text = 154, English trans.); see also
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 43 et passim; for canonical sources, see Wensinck
1967, 6, 529.
63 Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, The Book of Wisdom, trans. Victor Danner
(London: SPCK, 1978), 79 (with slight modifications).
9 Faces of al-Ḥaqq
The name and the named

Introduction
Al-Ḥallāj’s famous cry anā ‘l-ḥaqq (“I am the Truth”) is familiar to readers of
Ṣūfī sources and textbooks. The tragic fate of this intoxicated mystic is also well
known, although the details of his execution are still debatable: was he crucified
or hanged? Was he punished because of this and other scandalous utterances or
because he was a political threat to the Abbasid regime in Baghdād? Whatever
the answers to these questions, it is obvious that by such a pronouncement, at
least in the minds of its hearers, al-Ḥallāj dared to trespass the realm of divine
names; moreover, he dared to appropriate a divine name to himself: I am
al-ḥaqq [!] And this, indeed, was scandalous.1
In this chapter, I shall look into meanings and applications of this
divine name. From the outset, I note its extraordinary history: Among Ṣūfīs, it
became the most popular from among the divine names, often substituting the
supreme name ‘Allāh’. Linguistically, its meanings are complex: does it indicate
the abstract concept of ḥaqīqa, ‘truth’, and could thus, especially in its ‘divine’
function as ‘Name’, indicate Ultimate Truth, Reality? Or does it primarily
­associate – as is clearly implied by its plural form ḥuqūq – with the semantic
field of law and order, justice, duty, and the moral code? From the outset, there-
fore, I note the two disparate ‘faces’ (wujūh) of this ‘name’: the metaphysical
versus the legalistic. The grammatical nature of the word ḥaqq, too, renders it
susceptible to two different readings: is it an adjective or a noun? As a divine
name, al-Ḥaqq may be interpreted as a substantive, ‘the Truth’, but in some
Qurʾānic occurrences, such as Allāh mawlāhum al-ḥaqq (“Allāh their true Lord” –
Q. 6:62, 10:30) – it evidently functions as an adjective. As for its applications –
contrary to the conventional Ṣūfī use of al-Ḥaqq as the divine name par
­excellence, what can we make of the contemplative vision of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
in which al-Ḥaqq, rather than a divine name, is envisaged as a ‘power’ within God’s
cosmological hierarchy; a ‘power’ assigned a special position as mediator between
God and human beings and in charge of preserving law and order?
Indeed, my interest in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s idiosyncratic mystical vision,
while pondering the disparate faces of al-Ḥaqq, yielded the following under-
standing: Based on the semantic association of the verbal root ḥ-q-q with law,
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   193
order and justice, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī has drawn a binary paradigm in which
al-Ḥaqq is visualized as the ‘personification’ of the divine aspect of ‘justice’
(ʿadl). Moreover, in this binary paradigm, al-Ḥaqq is situated vis-à-vis a
counterpart, the divine aspect of ‘mercy’ (raḥma, faḍl). The analogy of these
polar antonyms with the Rabbinic notions of dīn and raḥamīm (Law and
Mercy), God’s dual measures, is hard to avoid.2 To the best of my knowledge,
within early manifestations of mystical Islam, a binary paradigm, based on the
personification of divine names, is unique to al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.3 Neverthe-
less, in several of its characteristics it carries echoes of late antique, pre-Islamic
traditions, especially tinged with ‘gnostic’ ideas and terminologies. In what
follows, I further ponder these questions.

‘The true’ or ‘the truth’?

Traditionally, al-Ḥaqq is one of the ninety-nine ‘beautiful names’ of God
(al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā). Although unanimously revered as a divine name, its meaning
does not escape exegetical queries. In several Qurʾānic verses, al-ḥaqq can be
understood as an attributive adjective related to God: in Q. 10:30, for example
(wa-ruddū ilā Allāhi mawlāhum al-ḥaqq) it can be straightforwardly understood as
“their true Lord”. Arberry chooses to render it somewhat vaguely as two distinct
appositives: “They shall be restored to God, their Protector, the True”. In other
verses, al-ḥaqq functions as a predicate of Allāh, implying, as it were, an identity –
at least syntactically – between the two. As for the two occurrences in Q. 22:6,
22:62 and 31:30, dhālika bi-anna Allāha huwa ’l-ḥaqq, Arberry renders al-Ḥaqq
as a substantive: “That is because God, He is the Truth”; and Q. 24:25:
wa-yaʿlamūna anna ‘llāha huwa ‘l-ḥaqq al-mubīn –”and they shall know that God
is the manifest Truth”.4 Clearly, this ambiguity stems from the dual syntactical
function of the word ḥaqq: it can be used as either a substantive or an adjective.
Furthermore, due to the vast semantic field which the word al-ḥaqq covers – it
may relate to concepts such as truth, justice, law, duty, ‘what is due’ etc. – there
inheres in it also a semantic complexity making an unequivocal grasp of its mean-
ing difficult to ascertain. Lastly, but importantly, the relationship the ‘divine
names’ bear to the ‘divine essence’ opens up a theological and exegetical quan-
dary whether God could be identified with anything other than Himself; in other
words, whether God could be conceived as Truth in the first place.
Such traditional prudence can be found, for example, in a modern work titled
God of Justice, in which Daud Rahbar (d. 2013) challenges the understanding of
al-ḥaqq as substantive, arguing that the abstract concepts of ‘truth’ or ‘reality’,
by which certain European translators of the Qurʾān chose to translate al-ḥaqq,
impose upon it a metaphysical abstraction which is not implied by the original
verses.5 Thus, for example, Q. 20:113, Allāhu huwa ’l-ḥaqq, according to
Rahbar, should not be understood as “Exalted then be God, the Truth” as in
E.H. Palmer’s translation which he cites; but rather as Allāhu huwa [al-ilāh]
al-ḥaqq: “God is the true [God]”, namely, as an adjective of an elliptic noun.6
Linguistically, Rahbar’s observation is legitimate, yet behind it lurks an intention
194   Polarity
to be in line with traditional exegesis; namely, to avoid any suggestion that God
could be identified with anything other than Himself. Such a perspective will
shun any implied identification of Allāh, even linguistically, with anything, be it
metaphysical and abstract or concrete.7 And yet, in Ṣūfī literature, the name
al-Ḥaqq – linguistically a stand-alone nominative – was the most widespread
and beloved from among all other divine names; in fact, it became the name of
God par excellence.8 How, then, did this come about?
This grammatical exposition may seem detached from the mystical perspec-
tives at the heart of my enquiry. However, in laying it down, my wish is to argue
that, beyond the linguistic-ideological divide between modern translators and
commentators, there also stretches an older divide – based on two disparate
radical perspectives – among the mystics themselves. I refer to the two concur-
rent mystical perspectives concerning al-Ḥaqq, both radical when compared
with traditional perspectives: the one of the third/ninth-century Baghdād Centre
of al-Junayd, most probably nurtured by monistic (i.e. Neoplatonic) ideas; the
other the distinctive vision of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, most probably nurtured by
binary traditions which were widespread in Late Antiquity.

‘Neoplatonic’ monism in classical Ṣūfism:

al-Junayd, al-Ḥallāj and the Ṣūfī compilations
As L. Massignon suggests, the traces of the special status accorded to al-Ḥaqq
in Ṣūfī circles lead to the early third/ninth-century Baghdādī centre headed by
Abū ‘l-Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 297/910).9 The appearance and consolidation of this
Ṣūfī centre coincides with the circulation of philosophical translations from
Greek (via Syriac) into Arabic. What relates to my enquiry here is the fact that
in Arabic translations of philosophical works at the beginning of the ʿAbbasid
era, as well as in original philosophical treatises in Arabic inspired by these
translations, the concept of al-ḥaqq/al-ḥaqq al-awwal is employed to denote the
ultimate, or first, Reality-Truth. Thus, for example, in an epistle titled The First
Philosophy (Kitāb al-Falsafa al-ūlā), the early philosopher Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq
al-Kindī (d. c.250/873) – whose philosophy, in retrospect, may be labelled
­Neoplatonist – writes to the Caliph al-Muʿtaṣim bi-llāh (d. 227/842):

Every existent derives the cause of its existence and permanence from al-
Ḥaqq … The noblest and most elevated philosophy in rank is the ‘first
philosophy’, namely, the knowledge of the first ‘true one’ (al-ḥaqq al-
awwal), for this is the cause of every ‘true thing’ (wa-ʿillat wujūd kull shayʾ
wa-thabātihi al-ḥaqq … wa-ashrafu ‘l-falsafa wa-aʿlāhā martabatan
al-falsafa ‘l-ūlā aʿnī ʿilma ‘l-ḥaqq al-awwal alladhī huwa ʿillat kull ḥaqq).10

This statement echoes the pseudo-Aristotle text known as The Theology of Aristotle
(Uthūlūjiyya Arisṭū), which had been translated into Arabic by al-Ḥimṣī, al-Kindī’s
disciple, and was then redacted by al-Kindī himself. As is well known, this text,
unbeknown to al-Kindī’s contemporaries, is, in fact, based, on Plotinus’s Enneads.11
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   195
In the tenth chapter of this Neoplatonic text, titled “Concerning the First
Cause” ( fī ‘l-ʿilla ‘l-ūlā), one reads:

The pure One (al-wāḥid al-maḥḍ) is beyond perfection and completion

(huwa fawqa ‘l-tamām wal-kamāl) […] The Intellect has become perfect
and complete because it was generated from the Pure True One that is
beyond perfection (wa-innamā ṣāra ‘l-ʿaql tāmman kāmilan li-ʾannahu
mubtadaʿ min al-wāḥid al-ḥaqq al-maḥḍ alladhī huwa fawqa al-tamām).12

It is within the Baghdādī Ṣūfī circle of Abū ‘l-Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 298/910),
and especially in the writings of al-Junayd himself, that we may find early evid-
ence for the use of al-ḥaqq to denote God as the ultimate, eternal Reality-
Truth.13 The following passage, culled from one of al-Junayd’s Epistles, is
­illuminating. In The Book of the Covenant (Kitāb al-Mīthāq), referring to
Q. 7:172, al-Junayd describes the enigmatic nature of the primordial ‘being’ of
the pre-created souls and their total dependence on al-Ḥaqq. He writes:

[… God] Glory be to Him declared that He had addressed them [the pre-created
souls] when they had not been, except in Him being for them (wa-hum
ghayr mawjūdīn illā bi-wujūdihi lahum); for their being had been for al-
Ḥaqq, without being for themselves (idh kānū wājidīna lil-ḥaqq min ghayr
wujūdihim li-anfusihim). At that stage al-Ḥaqq had been by al-Ḥaqq, in a
sense [of being] that cannot be known to anyone but Him and that is
attained by none but Him.14

Al-Junayd’s Rasāʾil are replete with statements that imply the mystical, paradox-
ical nexus of the existence of human beings with the ultimate transcendence of
al-Ḥaqq. Whether these statements were inspired by contemporary philosophical
thought cannot be ascertained. It is obvious, however, that for al-Junayd, in a fash-
ion reminiscent of contemporary philosophers, al-Ḥaqq refers to the Ultimate
Truth, the Eternal Reality, the Source of Being. This may have laid the ground for
the third–fourth/ninth–tenth-century mystics of Baghdād, mostly al-Junayd’s dis-
ciples, who elevated this name above others. Among his disciples, at least for a
period of time, was al-Ḥallāj, whose ecstatic utterance (shaṭḥ) anā ‘l-Ḥaqq, “I am
al-Ḥaqq”, became the best known, or rather the most notorious allusion to the
possibility of a nexus between divine and human realities to the point of identifica-
tion. This utterance, which is incorporated in the sixth section of al-Ḥallāj’s Kitāb
al-Ṭawāsīn, daringly expresses the idea that the traces of al-Ḥaqq, the divine real-
ity, are to be found in the human existence. He thus writes:

If you do not know Him (in lam taʿrifūhu)

Know His traces; ( fa-iʿrafū āthārahu)
I am that trace (wa-anā dhālika ‘l-athar)
I am al-ḥaqq (wa-anā ‘l-ḥaqq)
For I have never ceased (li-annī mā ziltu abadan)
Being real by the Real (bil-ḥaqq ḥaqqan).15
196   Polarity
Such ecstatic utterances (shaṭaḥāt) resulted not only in al-Ḥallāj’s trial and
execution, but also in his condemnation by his fellow Baghdādī Ṣūfīs, most
notably by al-Junayd himself.16 Strikingly, in his Epistles, al-Junayd expresses
his mystical vision of timelessness and spacelessness with boldness remarkably
similar to that of al-Ḥallāj. For example, in a letter to Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī
(d. 258/872), al-Junayd showers upon his recipient profuse blessings pointing to
the latter’s primordial, eternal state of existence beyond time and space (al-azal,
al-azaliyya). He writes:

May you abide in timelessness, be witness to timelessness in its timeless-

ness (Fa-lā zilta fī ‘l-azal shāhida ‘l-azal fī azaliyyatihi). May the Eternal
always be your support for that [of your eternity] which has passed (wa-lā
zāla ‘l-azal yakūnu laka muʾayyidan limā zāla minka). Then you will be in
the state in which you were before you were ( fa-kunta bi-ḥaythu kunta
kamā lam takun) … In this state – where is He, whose ‘whereness’ has no
‘where’? ( fa-ayna mā lā ayna li-aynihi).17

As for the perplexing question of God’s ‘whereness’ (ayna), al-Ḥallāj’s poetic

verses read extraordinarily similar to al-Junayd’s articulation. Al-Ḥallāj writes:
“For You, ‘where’ has no ‘where’/there, where You are, there is no ‘where’
­( fa-laysa li ‘l-ayni minka aynun/wa-laysa aynun bi-ḥaythu anta)”.18
Al-Ḥaqq in the elevated sense of God as Ultimate Reality and Truth has pro-
liferated in the Ṣūfī compilations of the fourth/tenth century, often in citations of
earlier mystics of the third/ninth century. A telling example is culled from Abū
Naṣr al-Sarrāj’s (d. 378/988) Kitāb al-Lumaʿ. In the chapter devoted to the
explanation of special idioms (alfāẓ) current in Ṣūfī parlance, al-Sarrāj explains
the idiom ‘al-ḥaqq bi ‘l-ḥaqq li ‘l-ḥaqq’ thus: “al-Ḥaqq is Allāh” (fal-ḥaqq
huwa Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla). He then goes on to cite Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz
(d. 286/899), who describes man’s intimacy with God in these words: “A wor-
shipper, placed with al-ḥaqq, by al-ḥaqq, for al-ḥaqq […] (ʿabd mawqūf maʿa
‘l-ḥaqq bi ‘l-ḥaqq li ‘l-ḥaqq […])”, for which al-Sarrāj offers an unequivocal
interpretation: “With Allāh, by Allāh, for Allāh”.19 Al-Sulamī, too, in his
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, records exegetical statements such as the following, comment-
ing on Q. 13:39, yamḥū Allāhu mā yashāʾu wa-yuthbitu: “Allāh obliterates what
He wills and establishes [what He wills]”. Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. c.320/932),
substituting Allāh with al-ḥaqq, says: “There are those for whom al-ḥaqq strives
and has obliterated them from their lower selves by His Self (minhum man jadda
bihim al-ḥaqq wa-maḥāhum ʿan nufūsihim bi-nafsihi)”.20 In fact, the diffusion of
al-Ḥaqq as the divine name par excellence in al-Sarrāj’s and al-Sulamī’s works
reflects a deep-rooted and well-established use in classical Ṣūfī lore at large.

Ḥ-Q-Q: semantics and mystical linguistics

Alongside the abstract metaphysical sense of Truth and Reality, ḥaqq has also an
ethical-legalistic connotation. The verbal root ḥ-q-q is intrinsically associated with
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   197
legal and moral religious concepts such as judgement, justice and moral conduct.
Etymologically, it can be linked to its Hebrew cognate, which means ‘to engrave’,
‘to give out laws’, as, for example, in Ezra 7:10: “For Ezra had prepared his heart
to seek the Law of the Lord […] and to teach statutes and ordinances [in Hebrew:
ḥoq u-mishpat] in Israel” (NKJV).21 In Arabic, derivatives of the root ḥ-q-q occur
profusely in sources pertaining to the religious Islamic lore to denote rights and
duties, dues, and divine precepts, as well as the religious law at large. God’s pre-
cepts, legal and moral, are named ḥuqūq Allāh – the duties which man is obliged
to fulfil towards God; whereas ḥuqūq al-nās and ḥuqūq al-nisāʾ are rights and
duties between man and his fellow men and women.22
The early Qurʾān commentator Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767), in his
al-Wujūh wal-naẓāʾir fī ‘l-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (Meanings and Aspects in the Vener-
able Qurʾān), devotes to al-ḥaqq a special entry, in which he draws out of
Qurʾānic passages eleven meanings of the term, among them Allāh [!], the
Qurʾān, Islam, justice (adl), sincerity (ṣidq), guidance (hudā), religion (dīn) – all
in opposition to bāṭil, namely false, falsehood, and hence polytheism (shirk).23
Likewise, in Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān (Attaining the Qurʾānic Connotations),
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī assigns to al-ḥaqq an entry in which, similarly to Muqātil,
he enumerates the term’s various connotations (wujūh).24 An examination of the
two works side by side reveals that, first, al-Tirmidhī was indeed acquainted
with Muqātil’s work to the point of somewhat simulating it; second,
al-Tirmidhī’s work, in fact, challenges Muqātil’s methodology. For the former,
merely listing the various semantic connotations (wujūh, naẓāʾir) of a term is
pointless. One rather needs to examine the connotations of a word in order to
look for its unifying meaning, since all connotations of a specific word relate to
a single essential meaning that lies at its root. Thus, for example, the first entry
in both Muqātil’s and al-Tirmidhī’s works is guidance (al-hudā). Muqātil lists
seventeen different connotations and al-Tirmidhī fifteen (although in the intro-
duction to this entry he says that he will propose eighteen). At the end of his list,
al-Tirmidhī makes the following statement:

All these things, which have become meanings with sub-meanings, resort to
one word [only]; for al-hudā [essentially] means the leaning of the heart
towards God.
( fa-marjaʿ hādhihi ‘l-ashyāʾ allatī ṣārat wujūhan dhāt shiʿab ilā kalima
wāḥida li-anna ‘l-hudā huwa maylu ‘l-qalb ilā ‘llāh).25

All connotations of a concept, therefore, stem from one single source, or rather,
in his own idiom, from one single ‘word’.26
In this light, al-Tirmidhī defines al-ḥaqq as that which inheres in everything
within the framework of God’s command, by which God imposed worship upon
men (al-ḥaqq qad tamakkana fī kull shayʾ min amri ‘llāh alladhī taʿabbada bihi
‘l-ʿibād); namely, al-ḥaqq is the divine command that programmes all man’s
activities.27 The following connotations, he writes, inhere within the concept of
198   Polarity
al-ḥaqq: 1) God;28 2) the monotheistic principle of tawḥīd;29 3) the mission of
the prophets (al-risāla);30 4) the prophet Muḥammad;31 5) the Qurʾān;32 6) the
religious law (al-sharīʿa);33 7) duties and rights towards God by which man is
bound (ḥuqūq Allāh);34 and 8) duties and rights of man towards his fellow man
(ḥuqūq al-nās).35 In toto, these semantic aspects point to the association of
al-ḥaqq with all pragmatic and ethical aspects of the religious life. According to
al-Tirmidhī, therefore, from the single fundamental concept (kalima) of al-ḥaqq,
both God’s command and man’s corresponding response issue.
The idea of a single, fundamental meaning at the root of all connotations of
al-ḥaqq, reflects yet another layer in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s teaching of the
nature of al-Ḥaqq: Rather than a sheer abstract concept, it becomes a personified
divine power, a hypostasis commissioned by God to instruct, supervise and
guide man’s conduct in all levels of life. Such personification, which al-Tirmidhī
exhibits throughout his works, singles him out from among his contemporaries.

Al-Ḥaqq and the friends of God

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī was neither a philosopher nor a theoretician. The ideas
which he laid down in his works, he claimed, were the product of mystical
‘seeing’ rather than intellectual speculation – in fact, he did not have much
regard for those who talk about things divine out of rehearsed knowledge.
However, to reconstruct his vision of al-ḥaqq methodically required borrowing
concepts which were not his own. His vocabulary is fundamentally traditional,
and his references, almost exclusively, are to the Qurʾān, the Ḥadīth and the
dicta of revered predecessors. Nevertheless, the product of his mystical ‘seeing’
extends beyond traditional perspectives and calls for the support of the vocabu-
lary of the comparative study of religion. Although one cannot regard his lit-
erary corpus as systematic, he presents his vision of al-Ḥaqq consistently and
profusely. In reconstructing his idiosyncratic vision of al-Ḥaqq, I thus resort to
idioms that are not his own and describe al-Ḥaqq as an ‘entity’ in a binary
scheme of existence. The more examples we assemble, the clearer it becomes
how, in al-Tirmidhī’s vision, the notion of ḥaqq Allāh transforms from a mere
religious and moral principle into a metaphysical ontological agent; a cosmic
personification (hypostasis, dynamis) whose main function is to guard and pre-
serve law, order and justice in God’s universe and also, in particular, to guard
and educate the Friends of God (al-awliyāʾ). From this perspective, al-Ḥaqq
emerges as a ‘power’; a divine agent appointed to oversee the implementation of
God’s law (ḥaqq), command, order and justice in the world. As it supervises the
application of God’s law by His worshippers, it is naturally associated also with
exact sentencing, accusation and punishment (ʿiqāb, ʿadhāb). In this respect, its
polar counterpart is raḥma – mercy, compassion. I shall describe this polarity
below in The binary scheme: Ḥaqq and Raḥma section.36
In this section, I shall follow al-Ḥaqq’s association with God’s special ser-
vants, His ‘friends’, the awliyāʾ. According to al-Tirmidhī’s scheme, al-Ḥaqq’s
function is to govern not only the domain of external religious praxis, but also to
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   199
supervise the special practices required of the Friends of God. Al-Tirmidhī’s
teaching concerning friendship (wilāya, walāya) is, no doubt, his most acknow-
ledged contribution to the tradition of Islamic mysticism (for more details, see
Part IV, Chapter 10). The opening paragraphs of Sīrat al-awliyāʾ (The Path of
the Friends), his major opus in this regard, may aptly display the binary frame-
work that lies at the foundation of this as well as all aspects of existence. Right
at the start of his book, he distinguishes between two kinds of friends: the
friends of al-ḥaqq (awliyāʾ ḥaqq Allāh) and the Friends of God (awliyāʾ Allāh):
“According to us, there are two kinds of awliyāʾ: the awliyāʾ of al-ḥaqq and the
awliyāʾ of God (wa ’l-awliyāʾ ʿindanā ʿalā ṣinfayni: ṣinf awliyāʾu ḥaqqi ‘llāh
wa-ṣinf awliyāʾu ‘llāh)”.37 The notion of awliyāʾ (in the sense of God’s Friends)
is, as is well known, essential to Ṣūfism at large; I discuss it in Part IV, Chapter
10 in this volume. However, I am not familiar with al-ḥaqq as genitive modifier
of al-walī, especially in contexts where al-ḥaqq is unambiguously not equated
with Allāh. For al-Tirmidhī, these two kinds, albeit sharing the title awliyāʾ, are
distinguished from one another by the nature of their paths, the conclusion of
their journeys and their ultimate positions in the spiritual hierarchy. The first
kind he names ṣādiqūn, which is derived from the concept of ṣidq, ‘sincerity’,
but also ‘exactitude’, ‘rigor’; while the second kind he names ṣiddīqūna –
perhaps after Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (see [nn 51–8)]. The ṣādiqūn are ‘activists’ – one
may depict them as ascetics (zuhhād, nussāk) – on their journey to God, their
working principle is effort and rigorous exertion: to shun desires, to curtail the
temptations of the body and the lower-self and to purify their hearts from alien
thoughts (see also Chapter 2). In all these activities, however, they rely on their
own wilful effort, that is paradoxically stirred and sustained by the nafs. This
ascetical path ends, al-Tirmidhī warns, in self-delusion and frustration. Rigor
(ṣidq) and effort ( jahd) are indeed necessary requirements, but they are insuffi-
cient, as they depend on the will of the nafs. As for the awliyāʾ [Allāh] – “Their
worship” he writes, “is too pure to be contaminated by the deficiencies of the
nafs” (inna ʿubūdata ’l-awliyāʾ aṣfā min an tumāzijahā hināt al-nafs).38 In Kitāb
al-Furūq (The Book of Semantic Differences), al-Tirmidhī names the worship of
these friends ʿubūda and distinguishes it from ʿibāda – both terms mean wor-
ship, but, for him, ʿubūda is ‘the worship of the heart’, the worship of the
Friends of God proper (awliyāʾ Allāh); whereas ʿibāda relates to the worship of
awliyāʾ al-ḥaqq, whose worship remains bound to their body and nafs: fa-’l-
ʿubūda li-ʿabīdihi wal-ʿibāda li-ʿabīd al-nafs.39 Effortful religious activity, rigor-
ous as it may be, does not release the worshipper from the manipulation of his
nafs and hence from being relentlessly inspected and judged by al-ḥaqq. In
Kitāb al-Furūq such a worshipper is described as a ship entangled in its ropes
and anchorage. In contrast, the friend in the service of God (khādimu ‘llāh), is
like a ship laden with cargo, which, due to the good wind with which it is
blessed and to its strong high sails, is carried forward fast and effortlessly.40
With this simile al-Tirmidhī ends the section titled khidmat al-ḥaqq wa-khidmat
Allāh in Kitāb al-Furūq and adds an explanation, which sums his unusual per-
spective: “The first is God’s servant (ʿabdu ‘llāh), while the second is the servant
200   Polarity
of God’s ḥaqq (ʿabdu ḥaqqi ‘llāh); the first is free, while the second is a slave,
held in bondage by his nafs.” (On ‘freedom’ and the rank of the aḥrār, see
Chapter 11).
One of the recurring themes in describing the path of awliyāʾ Allāh is their
total surrender to God’s will, which is demanded of them in all their comings
and goings. No activity should be carried out without divine permission (idhn),
regardless how worthy, from an ethical-religious perspective, it may be. Such
extreme restriction is deemed necessary to hinder the nafs from appropriating to
itself the good deeds (aʿmāl al-birr) that the walī may wish to perform. Along
the treacherous path of the inner life, the would-be walī is given assistance and
guidance by al-ḥaqq, the personification of discipline and edification. This tran-
spires clearly from the following passage in Sīrat al-awliyāʾ:

He who arrives in God’s vicinity (maḥall al-qurba) is told: As precondition

[of abiding in this place] you must stay firm (thabāt) […] lest you should
initiate an activity without permission. However, upon granting you our
permission, we shall send you out with the guardians (aṣdarnāka maʿa
‘l-ḥurrās), and we shall appoint al-Ḥaqq over you as an observer and assis-
tant (wakkalnā ‘l-ḥaqq shāhidan ʿalayka wa-muʾayyidan laka).41

The requirement of “those who arrive” to stay firm in their place of nearness and
the special educational function of al-Ḥaqq in this context can also be gleaned
from numerous passages of al-Tirmidhī’s Nawādir al-uṣūl (The Precious Tradi-
tions). Chapter 162, titled “Concerning the characteristic of the Friends of God
and the Essence of Friendship with God and a warning against humiliating
them” ( fī ṣifati ‘l-awliyāʾ wa-ḥaqīqati ‘l-wilāya wal-taḥdhīr min ihānatihim), is
particularly relevant, as it elucidates the wisdom behind the command to stay
firm and inactive. Here is a telling passage from this chapter:

When the walī, in his journey to God, reaches the peak of sincerity (ṣidq),
of combatting his nafs (wa-mujāhadat al-nafs) and weaning her from bad
qualities, his ruses cease (inqaṭaʿat ḥīlatuhu) [i.e. he does not know what
else he can do to harness the self]. He remains in front of God awaiting His
mercy. When God elects him for wilāya (intakhabahu ‘llāhu taʿālā li
‘l-wilāya), he appoints al-ḥaqq over him to guide him, purify him and lead
him to Him. From God’s nearness, the lights descend upon him, they purify
his nafs and extinguish her bad qualities – this is God’s education of him
( fa-dhāka tarbiyatu ‘llāh lahu).42

An important aspect of al-ḥaqq’s involvement with the mystical journey of the

walī is divine inspiration: for the awliyāʾ, al-ḥaqq fulfils an analogous function
to that of the spirit (rūḥ) in respect of the prophets (as in Q. 42:52); it is al-ḥaqq
who is appointed to inspire the awliyāʾ to engage in the divine discourse. Such
inspired discourse is named ḥadīth, and the inspired friend is named
muḥaddath.43 Here is al-Tirmidhī’s succinct explanation of the difference
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   201
between prophecy (nubuwwa) and friendship (wilāya) in regard to inspired
speech:

Prophecy is speech (kalām) detached from God as revelation (waḥy) together

with God’s divine spirit (maʿahu rūḥ min Allāh) […] Wilāya is bestowed on
one upon whom God confers his discourse (ḥadīth) [which descends] from
the heavenly treasures. It reaches him by means of al-ḥaqq’s tongue, together
with the sakīna which inheres in the heart of ‘the attracted one’
(al-majdhūb).44 The walī thus receives God’s discourse and is at peace.45

An interesting illustration of a muḥaddath in conjunction with al-ḥaqq is ʿUmar

b. al-Khaṭṭāb, the second Caliph. In the canonical Ḥadīth literature many tradi-
tions in various versions record such a conjunction between ʿUmar and al-ḥaqq,
and they are reiterated also by al-Tirmidhī. For example: “God placed ‘truth’ on
ʿUmar’s tongue and in his heart (inna -llāha jaʿala ‘l-ḥaqq ʿalā lisān ʿUmar wa-
qalbihi)”;46 “No community exists without a muḥaddath; if there be a
muḥaddath in my community, surely he is ʿUmar (mā min umma illā wa-lahā
muḥaddath fa-ʾin yaku fī ummatī fa-ʿUmar)”.47 Then there is also the following
tradition, in which it is hard to ignore the personification of al-ḥaqq: “The first
whom al-ḥaqq shakes hand with and greets is ʿUmar; he [ʿUmar] is the first
whom al-ḥaqq holds by the hand and takes into Paradise (Awwal man
yuṣāfiḥuhu ‘l-ḥaqqu ʿUmara …)”.48 Apparently, al-ḥaqq’s responsibilities do not
end with the worshipper’s afterlife; he is instrumental also in the mawqif, the
special place where the dead will be assembled before the day of judgement.
The description of this event in al-Tirmidhī’s Nawādir al-uṣūl joins al-ḥaqq
with his counterpart, al-raḥma, mercy.49

The binary scheme: Ḥaqq and Raḥma

In the binary scheme of existence portrayed by al-Tirmidhī, the strict and
uncompromising mission of al-ḥaqq is mitigated by its counterpart al-raḥma,
mercy. This binarity is universal; it prevails and is manifest in all realms of
existence: divine – in the polar attributes of Majesty ( jalāl) versus Beauty
( jamāl); celestial – in angelic types (see below); human – in complementary
psychological and mystical states, such as contraction (qabḍ) versus expansion
(basṭ), annihilation ( fanāʾ) versus permanence (baqāʾ), and more.50
In Chapter 162 of Nawādir al-uṣūl, to which we have already referred,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī writes:

According to God’s governance (tadbīr), both al-ḥaqq and al-raḥma are in

charge of human beings’ affairs: al-ḥaqq is in charge of their worship
(ʿubūda) … and [in the Day of Judgement] in charge of Wrath (ghaḍab) and
the Fire (al-nār); then, to those for whom His Mercy precedes His Wrath,
Mercy appears and delivers him from al-ḥaqq, for God has said: ‘My Mercy
precedes my Wrath’ (inna raḥmatī sabaqat ghaḍabī).51
202   Polarity
Ḥaqq and raḥma arch over the universal binarity, and the power they generate
becomes embodied in historical personalities as well as in social and religious
groups. Within the Islamic lore, the archetypes of this binarity are the two first
Caliphs: ʿUmar is the embodiment of strict law and severe justice, while Abū
Bakr is the embodiment of leniency, kindness, compassion and mercy. The fol-
lowing prophetic ḥadīth, which al-Tirmidhī cites in Nawādir al-uṣūl, presents
this dichotomy clearly: “The most compassionate from among my community
toward my community is Abū Bakr, while the toughest as regards God’s law is
ʿUmar (arḥam ummatī bi-ummatī Abū Bakr wa-aqwāhum fī dīni ‘llāh ʿUmar)”.52
Having cited the ḥadīth, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī elaborates: “As for Abū Bakr, he
was distinguished by affection (ʿaṭf), mercy (raḥma), compassion (raʾfa), gentle-
ness (riqqa), and tenderness (līn); while ʿUmar was distinguished by vigor
(shidda), strength (quwwa), hardness (ṣalāba), and severity (ṣarāma)”.53 That
the divergence between these two companions is due to the rule of al-ḥaqq on
the one hand and the rule of al-raḥma on the other is explicitly articulated
throughout Chapter 43 in the Nawādir al-uṣūl; for example: “What was fore-
most on ʿUmar’s heart was al-ḥaqq, its light and its dominion (wa-kāna
‘l-ghālib ʿalā qalb ʿUmar al-ḥaqq wa-nūruhu wa-sulṭānuhu)”.54 It is even more
explicit in Chapter 162 of the Nawādir al-uṣūl: “What was most dominant on
Abū Bakr during his lifetime was Mercy; and what was most dominant on
ʿUmar was the pursuit of al-ḥaqq and its fortification […] The one was activated
by al-raḥma and the other by al-ḥaqq”.55
Beyond the first two Caliphs, this binary typology extends also to the pro-
phetic and angelic domains at large, and an analogy is proposed between these
archetypal figures and messengers and angels. Al-Tirmidhī relates how, from
among the messengers, the Prophet likened (shabbaha) Abū Bakr to Abraham
and from among the angels to Michael, while ʿUmar he likened to Noah and
Gabriel.56 A ḥadīth in this vein is indeed recorded by Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal
(d. 241/855), an early reputable source:

There are two angels in heaven, the rule of one is vigor while the rule of the
other is tenderness – both are correct: the one is Jibrīl and the other Mīkāʾīl.
And there are two prophets [in heaven]: the rule of one is vigor while the
rule of the other is tenderness – and both are correct, they are Ibrāhīm and
Nūḥ. And I have two companions, the rule of one is vigor while the rule of
the other is tenderness and both are correct. Then he mentioned Abū Bakr
and ʿUmar.57

The occurrence of this ḥadīth in Ibn Ḥanbal’s collection supports the presence of
al-Tirmidhī’s binary perspective in early Islamic lore; yet its absence from most
canonical Ḥadīth collections of his time allows us to conclude that al-Tirmidhī’s
comprehensive binary scheme remained sporadic and probably idiosyncratic.
Finally, al-Tirmidhī’s binarity is exemplified also by the two religious and
ethnic groups that, historically and culturally, are at the forefront of his world:
the Banū Isrāʾīl (the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and the Banū
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   203
Ismāʿīl (the Arabs, the descendants of Abraham and Ishmael). Their archetypal
binarity is elaborated in one of the longest chapters of the Nawādir al-uṣūl,
Chapter 67,58 in which, to the best of my knowledge, his cosmological views are
displayed more systematically than in any other work of his. He extols the
Arabs, and particularly the House of Muḥammad, asserting their priority and
elevation over and above all other groups; yet he also places them alongside the
Banū Isrāʾīl as the exempla of the two kinds of worship, with which we have
already become familiar in a different context: the worship of Banū Ismāʿīl is
built on good qualities (ḥusn al-khuluq), magnanimity (samāḥa) and courage
(shajāʿa), while the worship of Banū Isrāʾīl is built on effort ( jahd) and ser-
vitude (ʿibāda).59 He writes:

The Arabs are affiliated to Ismāʿīl. There is, however, one tree, this is
Ibrāhīm, God’s intimate (Ibrāhīm khalīl u ‘llāh) […] This tree has two
branches: Ismāʿīl and Isḥāq […] Ismāʿīl is the father of the Arabs and Isḥāq
the father of the Hebrews (al-ʿibrāniyyīn), Banū Isrāʾīl; their affiliation is to
Yaʿqūb, Isrāʾīl i ‘llāh [!], the son of Iṣḥāq the son of Ibrāhīm. Each one of
these two branches has a lot (ḥaẓẓ) from God, a share (naṣīb), a virtue
( faḍīla), an esteem (karāma) and an endowment (mawhiba). These they
bequeath to their descendants forever. In the descendants of Isḥāq, the lot
and endowment manifest in effort and servitude, whereas in the descendants
of Ismāʿīl – in good qualities (ḥusn al-khuluq), magnanimity (samāḥa), and
courage (shajāʿa). We have contemplated the special endowment
(mawhiba) that God has bestowed on each one of them […] and we have
found that effort and servitude (al-jahd wal-ʿibāda) issued from the treas-
ure-troves of Wisdom (ḥikma), and that good qualities (al-akhlāq
al-maḥmūda) issued from the treasures-troves of Benevolence (minna).60

“May my mercy precede my wrath”: comparative aspects

A ḥadīth qudsī, an extra-Qurʾānic divine saying, reads as follows:

Before creating creation, Your Lord had written with His own Hand, pre-
scribing upon Himself, ‘May My mercy supersede – and perhaps He said
precede – My wrath’ ” (ghalabat aw qāla sabaqat raḥmatī ghaḍabī).61

The theme of the precedence of divine mercy over divine justice occurs in Ṣūfi
discussions concerning the oscillation of the mystics between states which
reflect God’s Majesty ( jalāl) and those that reflect God’s Beauty ( jamāl).62 The
distinction between divine punishment (or wrath) and mercy is based on
Q. 7:156: “I smite with my punishment whom I will, and My mercy embraces all
things (… wa-raḥmatī wasiʿat kulla shayʾin)”. The precedence of mercy over
wrath and punishment was given a mythical description by Muqātil ibn
Sulaymān (d. 150/767), one of the earliest Qurʾān commentators. In his Tafsīr,
he narrates how, during the creation of Adam, God commanded the spirit
204   Polarity
(al-rūḥ) to enter Adam’s lifeless body. As it descended through the cavity of the
body, it could not find an outlet and became distressed. When it reached the feet,
it turned around and started ascending through the body. Upon reaching the nos-
trils, a powerful release occurred, Adam sneezed, and the spirit was free. In
response, the first words that Adam uttered were “Praise be to God (al-ḥamdu
li-llāh)”, to which God replied with “May God have mercy upon you
( yarḥamuka ‘llāh)”.63 According to Muqātil, the commentator, these, therefore,
were the first words by which God had addressed Adam and hence they pro-
claim that “God’s mercy precedes His anger”.64
This myth echoes of Gnostic traditions. According to Mandaean sources,
Adam’s sneezing was caused by the breath of life that was inserted into his life-
less body. Sneezing was hence the first indication of his coming to life.65 One
could even argue that this Islamic tradition and the myth of creation to which it
adheres bear traces of a polemic against the Gnostics, who saw in the spirit of
life and in its mixing with the material world something essentially evil.66
The idea of two divine measures, however, the measure of justice and the
measure of mercy (middat ha-dīn u-middat ha-raḥamīm), bears the hallmarks of
Judaic traditions. According to Numbers Rabbah 9.31, the governance of the
world is dependent upon the balance between these two polar measures. Other
rabbinic sources, however, insist that without the predominance of Mercy over
Judgement the world would not have been created in the first place (Genesis
Rabbah 8.4 and 12.15) nor would it have prevailed (BT, Avodah Zarah 3b).
Jewish sources portray the constant tension that exists within God between the
two divine measures. In B. Talmud, Berachot 7a, in a passage discussing the
question whether God prays, it is related on Rav’s authority: “God prays, and
His prayer is, ‘May it be my will that my mercy prevail over my wrath and that I
treat my sons according to the measure of mercy […]’ ”. This is echoed also in
Islamic sources. Alongside the widely attested tradition concerning the predomi-
nance of God’s mercy over His wrath, we find an account concerning God’s
prayer. In his Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī quotes a ‘Judaic’
tradition related by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, an early reputable pietist and Ḥadīth trans-
mitter. According to Ḥasan’s account, the children of Israel asked Moses
whether God prayed. Moses refrained from answering but God commanded him
to do so: “Tell them” – God instructs Moses – “God does pray, and His prayer
is, ‘May my mercy precede my anger’ ”.67
It is thus clear that the binary theme of God’s polar qualities was prevalent in
late antique traditions and may have reached Islam from various directions and
continued to develop there.

The binary scheme: cosmological and further

comparative aspects
To understand the extent of al-Tirmidhī’s vision, we should reiterate that,
according to his comprehensive world-view, God’s Oneness (aḥadiyya,
firdāniyya) is manifest in His creation in two sets of qualities (or ‘measures’) – a
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   205
severe measure whose manifestations are power, dominion, justice and law; and
a benevolent measure whose manifestations are kindness, mercy, forgiveness
and love. But al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s vision does not stop in the sheer observa-
tion of binarity and its exemplifications. What he also ‘sees’ and records are the
various ‘realms’ (or ‘spheres’) through which the dual measures pass and unfold
on the descent from divine Oneness into the realm of polar manifestations. The
above paradigm of Banū Isrāʾīl versus Banū Ismāʿīl prompts al-Tirmidhī to
investigate the origin of their divergence and how it unfolds. Such investigation,
according to him, is not based on learning, but on contemplation and vision, cor-
roborated by Qurʾānic verses and Prophetic traditions. His contemplation pro-
duces the following vision:

Then we looked into Wisdom (ḥikma) and Benevolence (minna) to find

from where each one of them issued; we found that Wisdom issued from
Justice (ʿadl), Justice from Lordship (rubūbiyya) and Lordship from King-
ship (mulk) and Power (qudra). As for Benevolence, we found that it issued
from Affection (ʿaṭf), Affection from Grace ( faḍl) and Grace from Beauty
( jamāl). From Kingship, issued Wrath (ghaḍab), then the Fire (al-nār) was
kindled and burst into flames and became black from Wrath; hence it is
black, dark, filled with His Wrath. From His Beauty ( jamālihi) Mercy
(raḥma) issued, Kindness and Affection appeared, till the Paradises
(al-jinān) trembled, glowed (tawarradat) and were lit by His light; hence
they are white, luminous, filled with His Mercy (raḥma) and His Spirit
(rūḥ). There are only two [divine attitudes]: a [benevolent] look (naẓra) or a
harsh one ( jafwa): The people of reward (ahl al-thawāb) were blessed by
one look [of God’s] while the people of punishment (ahl al-ʿiqāb) became
wretched by one harsh look. Thus, to the extent of what we knew (ʿalimnā)
of them [the two groups] and their descendants from their exteriorities, we
understood ( fahimnā) their lot (ḥaẓẓ) and endowment (mawhiba) in respect
of their interiorities.

An attempt to capture schematically al-Tirmidhī’s vision of the unfoldment of

the dual universal ‘attributes’ (or ‘measures’) from their divine source results in
the following graphic scheme in Figure 9.1.
According to Figure 9.1, all that occurs and all that is perceived and can be
conceptualized – theologically, ethically, ethnically, historically, personally and
so on – must be viewed in terms of this general existential binarity.68 Viewed
comprehensively, al-Tirmidhī’s scheme seems one of a kind. Yet a comparative
study may show that it is closely associated with a broader tradition within early
esoteric circles, a tradition which, for polemical reasons, was shunted aside by
the growing monistic and Neoplatonic flavour of Islamic mysticism contempora-
neous with al-Tirmidhī and extending to a later period. I am particularly
impressed by the striking similarity of al-Tirmidhī’s scheme with Kabbalistic
paradigms, not only in graphic terms but also in terms of the nomenclature of
the different ‘realms’, ‘measures’ or ‘spheres’, especially since the Kabbalistic
206   Polarity

Figure 9.1  Scheme of divine polarity.

schemes, known as The Tree of Life or Adam Kadmon, hail from the later
Middle Ages, a few hundred years after al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. Associations to
earlier esoteric traditions occupied me also in the context of Chapter 7 in this
volume: in the Introduction to “Between Fear and Hope”, where I attempt to
trace the possible pre-Islamic sources in which the concept of ‘polarity within
oneness’ prevails. As pointed out in Chapter 7, the field of possibilities is very
wide. Rather than attempting to identify precisely the early spiritual milieu
which could have inspired such a scheme in Early Islam and beyond, I prefer to
see it as a continuum in Islam of Hellenistic, Judaic and Christian traditions,
possibly pseudepigraphic, magical, hermetic, tinged with late antique Gnostic
and Neoplatonic elements. Throwing a glance at the future evolution of such a
continuum, the similarity of the binary scheme presented in this chapter with
Kabbalistic paradigms is hard to ignore. It stimulates a further proposition:
having been assimilated and processed by esoteric circles in Early Islam, be they
Ismāʿīlī or Ṣūfī,69 it evolved within the medieval Judaic matrix, perhaps prim-
arily in Andalus. There or elsewhere in the Judaic milieu, such a binarity may
have been enriched by various Judaic late antique sources, and eventually came
into fruition as the full-blown Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Tracing such analogies
in the esoteric traditions of Islam and Judaism may highlight the two-way traffic
that linked Judaic and Islamic esotericisms in the Early and Late Middle Ages.

A drama at the Ḥajj: al-Ḥaqq versus Allāh’s mercy

A dramatic encounter between al-Ḥaqq and God’s raḥma during the ḥajj may be
presented as the apotheosis of this enquiry. Appended to a tradition related in the
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   207
name of ʿAbbās ibn Mirdās, one of Muḥammad’s Companions, the role ascribed
by al-Tirmidhī to al-Ḥaqq stands out most vividly and curiously. The ḥadīth
runs as follows:70

On the eve of ʿArafa, the Messenger of God, peace be on him, prayed on

behalf of his community pleading God for forgiveness and mercy. Having
prayed for a long time, God finally answered: “I grant your request, except
for their iniquities to one another (illā ẓulm baʿḍihim baʿḍan). As for their
sins towards me, I forgive them.”71 Yet the Prophet insisted: “Oh, Lord, it is
in your power to avenge this ill-treated one beyond the injustice that was
done to him; forgive, then, this sinful one.” He was not answered that
evening. In the morning, however, the morning of Muzdalifa, the Prophet
prayed even more fervently, and God answered: “I have already forgiven
them.” Then the Prophet smiled. When asked why he smiled when smiling
was untimely, he answered: “I smiled at Iblīs, God’s Adversary, for when
he knew that God had answered my prayer for my community, he fell down
screaming and wailing, threw dust on his head and fled.”

Al-Tirmidhī’s elaboration follows suit:

On the eve of ʿArafa they attained [God’s] forgiveness and were sheltered
from their sins, but al-Ḥaqq taʿālā[72!] kept charging them and claiming
from them their liabilities for one another, with no one to resist or oppose
him. If God had left them with al-Ḥaqq ( fa-law tarakahum wal-Ḥaqq
subḥānahu wa-taʿālā), the latter would have pulled them out of their shelter
[…] Then God, most exalted, had mercy on them, not wishing to disappoint
His guests and callers […] who were imploring Him as beggars that He
should vouch for their social responsibilities ( fa-yaḍmanu ʿanhum
al-tabiʿāt) and appease their claimants on their behalf (wa-yarḍā ahluhā
ʿanhum) […] Hence, He forgave them, and they remained in His shelter
( fa-bāqū fī satrihi). Then al-Ḥaqq, satisfied with the guarantee of the Noble
and Trustworthy, let go of them (wa-raḍiya al-Ḥaqq jalla jalālahu [!]73
ḍamāna ’l-karīm al-wafiy wa-khallā ʿanhum).74

In the published version of the Nawādir al-uṣūl cited here, three layers can be
discerned: the layer of Ibn Mirdās’s ḥadīth, which is recorded also in several
other Ḥadīth compilations; the layer of al-Tirmidhī’s elaboration, according to
which, remarkably, al-Ḥaqq replaces Iblīs; and a third layer, the layer of the
printed text: one can witness here the confusion of the copyist/s or redactor/s
regarding this narrative, when the reverent formulae taʿālā and jalla jalālahu are
appended to the mention of al-Ḥaqq. Indeed, al-Tirmidhī’s elaboration presents
a bold and unconventional perception of al-Ḥaqq as a semi-autonomous celestial
hypostasis, governing the realm of law, justice and retribution, instead of the
more familiar and conventional al-Ḥaqq as a divine name. Not only is al-Ḥaqq,
in analogy to Iblīs, ontologically contemplated; but, in respect to the measure of
208   Polarity
divine mercy and forgiveness, he is even portrayed, to some degree, as antagonistic
to God himself. In fact, according to this elaboration of the ḥadīth, the sinful
believers are obliged to look for shelter under the wings of God’s compassion,
for fear of the exacting judgement and ruthless retribution of al-Ḥaqq.75

Notes
  1 See Jīlānī Kāmrān and al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr Ḥallāj, Ana al-Haqq Reconsidered
(New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1994), 3 et passim.
  2 For a fuller elaboration on this theme, see Chapter 7 in this monograph.
  3 It is interesting to ponder in this context Kūnī and Qadar, the first created beings in
early Ismāʿīlī thought – see, for example, Wilferd Madelung, “Cosmogony and Cos-
mology in Ismaʿilism (4)”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 6, 322–6; S.M. Stern, Studies
in Early Ismāʿīlism (Jerusalem: Magnes and Brill, 1983), esp. 3–29.
  4 A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (New York: Macmillan, 1979); see also Q. 18:44,
where Arberry translates the expression li-’llāh al-ḥaqq as “to God the True”.
  5 See Daud Rahbar, God of Justice, a Study in the Ethical Doctrine of the Qurʾān
(Leiden: Brill, 1960), 31–4; cf. Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the
Qurʾān (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966), 97–8.
  6 Note Rahbar’s lengthy Appendix I – 231–50, where he makes several comments on
the misleading translation by E.H. Palmer, The Koran (Qurʾān) (London: Oxford
University Press, 1951).
  7 Cf., for example, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr
al-Qurʾān, Vol. 17 (Cairo: Būlāq, 1328), 91–2, 137; also Tanwīr al-miqbās min
tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, 282: bi-anna Allāha huwa al-ḥaqq = bi-anna ʿibādat Allāh hiya
al-ḥaqq wa-anna Allāha huwa al-qawī (see also 277 for 22:6); ibid., 294 (for
24:25): “wa-yaʿlamūna anna Allāha”, yaʿnī anna ma qāla Allāhu fī ‘l-dunyā, huwa
’l-ḥaqqu ’l-mubīn. Such reservation and consequently a metaphorical understanding
of al-ḥaqq is suggested, for example, by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in his exegesis of
Q. 6:62: al-ḥaqq maṣdar … wa-asmāʾ al-maṣādir lā tajrī ʿalā ’l-fāʿilīna illā majāzan
ka-qawlinā fulān ʿadl wa-rajāʾ … wa-faḍl – see Mafātīḥ al-ghayb = al-Tafsīr
al-kabīr, Vol. 7 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1981), 19; cf., however, ibid.,
Vol. 23, 9: wal-ḥaqq huwa ‘l-mawjūd al-thābit: “al-Ḥaqq is the permanent Exist-
ent”. Another case in point is the divine name al-nūr, derived from 24:35: Allāhu
nūr al-samawāt wal-arḍ – see Tanwīr al-miqbās, 295; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān,
Vol. 18, 104ff.; cf. al-Qushayrī, Sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat
al-Amānah, 1969), 297–8: wa-qāla: summiya al-nūr li-anna minhu al-nūr, wal-
ʿarab tusammī man minhu al-shayʾ bi-smi dhālika al-shayʾ, as compared with ibid.,
229: wa-yakūnu al-ḥaqq bi-maʿnā dhī al-ḥaqq; note also that the same prooftext is
used for both al-ḥaqq and al-nūr.
  8 See al-Qushayrī, Sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, 230: “From among the divine names,
the one most prevalent in the language of this group (= the Ṣūfīs) is al-Ḥaqq”
­(wa-akthar mā yajrī ʿalā lisān hādhihi ‘l-ṭāʾifa min asmāʾihi al-ḥaqq). See Louis
­Massignon, La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansûr Hallâj: Martyr Mystique de L’islam,
Exécuté À Bagdad Le 26 Mars 922: Étude D’histoire Religieuse, Vol. 3 (Paris:
­Gallimard, 1975), 89; cf. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts, 97–8.
  9 See Massignon, La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansûr Hallâj, Vol. 2, Ch. 11, 525; Mas-
signon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans.
Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 28.
10 Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafīyah, ed. Muḥammad
ʻAbd al-Hādī Abū Rīdah (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʻArabī, 1978), 26. On al-Kindī, see
Peter Adamson, “Al-Kindi”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer
2018 edn); see also Cristina D’Ancona, “Al-Kindī on the Subject Matter of the First
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   209
Philosophy”, in Jan Aertsen and Andreas Speer, Was Ist Philosophie Im Mittelalter?
(Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1998), 841–55.
11 See Peter Adamson, “The Theology of Aristotle”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition) = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/
entries/theology-aristotle/.
12 Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of
Aristotle (London: Duckworth, 2002); also ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Iflūṭīn ʿinda
‘l-ʿArab (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahḍat al-miṣriyya, 1955), 135. For the influence of
Neoplatonism on the development of Muslim philosophy and theology,
see Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus; Cristina D’Ancona, “Greek into Arabic:
­Neoplatonism in Translation”, in The Cambridge Companion to Arab Philosophy,
eds Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 10–31; Ian Richard Netton, Allāh Transcendent: Studies in the Struc-
ture and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Cosmology (London:
Routledge, 1989).
13 For the impact of Neoplatonism on Ṣūfism, see, for example, Annemarie Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina
Press, 1975), 10ff and the references mentioned there; Michael Ebstein, Mysticism
and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabi and the Isma’ili Tradition
(Leiden: Brill, 2014). See also A.H. Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and
Writings of al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth Century Mystic (London: Luzac,
1962), 14ff.
14 Al-Junayd, Rasāʾil, in Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and Writing of al-Junayd,
41: fa-qad akhbara jalla dhikruhu annahu khāṭabahum wa-hum ghayr mawjūdīn illā
bi-wujūdihi lahum idh kānū wājidīna li-l-ḥaqq min ghayr wujūdihim li-anfusihim
fa-kāna al-ḥaqq bi-l-ḥaqq fī dhālika mawjūdan bi-l-maʿnā alladhī lā yaʿlamuhu ghay-
ruhu wa-lā yajiduhu siwāhu.
15 Al-Ḥallāj, Kitāb al-Ṭawāsīn (Beirut, 1998), 104; cf. Jīlānī Kāmrān, Ana al-Haqq
Reconsidered, Tasin VI, 88.
16 See Louis Massignon, “ ‘Anā al Ḥaqq’ Étude historique et critique sur une formule
dogmatique de théologie mystique, d’après les sources islamiques”, Der Islam 3
(1912): 248–57; Massignon, La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansûr Hallâj, Vol. 2, 525f.;
also Herbert Mason, Al-Hallaj (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1995), 33ff.; cf. Carl W.
Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1985) 40–5.
17 Al-Junayd, Rasāʾil, in Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and Writing of al-Junayd, 2.
18 Al-Ḥallāj, Dīwān al-Ḥallāj, poem no. 11 (Munājāt al-Ḥaqq), 123–4.
19 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, ed. Ṭāhā ʻAbd al-Bāqī Surūr (Cairo: Dār al-
Kutub al-Hadīthah, 1960), 411 (Bāb bayān hādhihi ‘l-alfāẓ); see also Bāb waṣf samāʿ
al-khāṣṣa (Concerning the ‘listening’ of the ‘special ones’):
wa-man yasmaʿu bi ‘l-ḥaqq wa-min al-ḥaqq fa-innahu lā yatarassamu bi-hādhihi
‘l-rusūm … yakūnu samāʿuhu bi ‘llāh wa-li ‘llāh wa-mina ‘llāh … fa-shahidū
mawārid a ‘l-ḥaqq li ‘l-ḥaqq bi-lā ʿilla.
He who listens by means of al-ḥaqq and from al-ḥaqq, he is not affected by these
impressions [i.e. music, recitations etc.] … His listening is by Allāh, for Allāh and
from Allāh … These ones witness the arrival stations of al-ḥaqq for al-ḥaqq with
no intermediary.
(al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 350)
20 Al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 2001), 336.
21 ‫ ּתֹוַרת ְיהָוה ְוַלֲﬠׂשת ּוְלַלֵּמד ְּב ִיְׂשָרֵאל ֹחק ּוִמְׁשָּפט‬-‫ ;ִּכי ֶﬠְזָרא ֵהִכין ְלָבבֹו ִלְדרֹוׁש ֶאת‬for the root ḥ-q-q in
other Semitic languages, see Hoftijzer et al., Dictionary of the North-West Semitic
Inscriptions (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 401; also, Botterweck and Ringgren (eds), Theologi-
cal Dictionary of the Old Testament, Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 140.
210   Polarity
22 For nawāʾib al-ḥaqq in the sense of obligations towards family and tribe, see
M.J. Kister, “God will Never Disgrace Thee: The Interpretation of an Early Ḥadīth”,
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1(2) (1965): 27–32.
23 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, al-Wujūh wal-naẓāʾir, ed. al-Ḍāmin (Dubai: Markaz jumʿat
al-Mājid lil-thaqāfa wal-turāth, 2005), 182–5; cf. Massignon, Essay on the Origins of
the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, 28.
24 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-qurʾān, ed. Ḥusnī Naṣr Zaydān (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿādah, 1969), 153–4 (no. 72).
25 Ibid., 24.
26 For more on al-Tirmidhī’s ‘mystical linguistics’, see Chapter 12 in this monograph.
27 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl, 154; cf. 153: wa-ammā qawluhu ‘l-ḥaqq, fal-ḥaqq
huwa nūru ‘l-istiqrār fa-huwa lāḥiq kull ʿamal.
28 Ibid., 154, no. 1; to the best of my knowledge, this is the only direct instance in
al-Tirmidhī’s corpus that suggests an identification of ḥaqq with Allāh – note,
however, that Muqātil had preceded him – see al-Wujūh wal-naẓāʾir, 182.
29 Cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, ed. Bernd Radtke (Stuttgart: F. Steiner,
1992), §70, 47: wal-ḥaqq huwa ḥaqīqatu ’l-tawḥīd alladhī warada ʿalā ’l-qalb (ḥaqq
is the truth of the tawḥīd [declaring God’s Oneness] which has descended upon the
heart).
30 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl, 154, no. 4; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ,
§147 119: wa-qad baʿatha ‘llāhu ‘l-rusul fī ‘l-fatra wal-ʿamā wa-dawlat i ‘l-bāṭil ḥattā
nuʿisha ‘l-ḥaqq wa-zahaqa ’l-bāṭil.
31 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl, 154, no. 5; cf. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Al-Amthāl min al-Kitāb wa-l-Sunna, ed. al-Sayyid al-Jamīlī (Beirut: Dār
Ibn Zaydūn, 1985), 4: Kānū ‘l-yahūd yantaẓirūna khurūj Muḥammad … wa-ʿarafū
annahu ‘l-ḥaqq fa-kadhdhabūhu wa-ḥasadūhu.
32 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl, 154, no. 2; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir
al-uṣūl, ed. Ismāʻīl Ibrāhīm Mutawallī ʿAwaḍ (Cairo: Maktabat al-imām al-Bukhārī,
2008), 210, ll. 6ff: … fa-anzala kalāman furqānan yufarriqu bayna ‘l-ḥaqq wal-bāṭil.
33 See Kitāb al-Ṣafāʾ, MS. Chester Beatty, f. 69, l. 11: ṣafāʾ al-qalb al-qiyām ʿalā
ḥaqqihi bi-amrihi wa-idhnihi.
34 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, al-aṣl 173, 216: wa-idhā ʿaẓamat al-nafs
al-dunyā ātharathā [text: ātharahā] ʿalā ḥuqūqi ‘llāh taʿālā wa-lā yajtamiʿu taʿẓīm
al-ḥuqūq wa-taʿẓīm al-dunyā fī qalb.
35 See ibid., al-aṣl 100, 135, ll. 25ff: al-nāṣiḥ … al-muqtaṣid … yabdaʾu bi-ḥaqq Allāh
qabla ḥaqq al-nās wa-yuʾthiru ḥaqq Allāh taʿālā ʿalā ḥaqq al-nās … wa-ammā
al-muqarrabūna … fa-istawā ʿindahum ʿamal al-dunyā wal-ākhira wa-ḥuqūq Allāh
taʿālā wa-ḥuqūq al-nās fa-ṣārat kulluhā ḥuqūqa Allāh ʿindahum; see also al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §4, 2: wa-ammā walī ḥaqq Allāh … fa-huwa rajul
muʾaddin li ‘l-farāʾiḍ ḥāfiẓ li ‘l-ḥudūd lā yashtaghilu bi-shayʾ ʿan dhālika.
36 See also Chapter 7 in this monograph, where late antique antecedents of such a
world-view, in particular the two measures of dīn and ḥesed in rabbinic Judaism, are
discussed.
37 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, ed. Radtke, 2 §3; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: Catholique, 1965), 117.
38 Ibid., 19 §38.
39 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-Furūq wa-manʿ al-tarāduf, ed. M.I. al-Juyūshī
(Cairo: Dār al-nahār, 1998), 79, no. 17:
ʿIbāda means to employ the body in works of obedience; to watch over the
members of the body from doing the wrong [in the eyes of God]; to keep up and
fulfil God’s commands; to carry out good voluntary deeds – in particular praying
by night and fasting by day (al-ʿibāda imtihān al-jasad lil-ṭāʿa yaḥfaẓu ‘l-jawāriḥ
ʿan masākhiṭihi wa-yuḥāfiẓu ʿalā farāʾiḍihi wa-yatanaffalu bi ‘l-ṣāliḥ min al-aʿmāl,

‫ﱠﺎﻥ ﺃَ َﺣ‬ ‫ﻴ‬‫ﺒ‬
ِ ِ َ َُ ‫ﻧ‬‫ﻭ‬ ، ‫ﻡ‬ َ
‫ﱠﻼ‬ ‫ﺴ‬ ‫ﺍﻟ‬
‫ ﺃَ َﺣﺪُ ُﻫ َﻤﺎ َﻳﺄ‬،‫ﺎﻥ‬
ِ َ ِ‫َ ﺎﺣ‬ ‫ﺻ‬
.‫ﻲ ﱠ ُ َﻋﻨ ُﻬ َﻤﺎ‬
Faces of al-Ḥaqq   211
wal-ghālib ʿalayhi min al-nawāfil qiyām al-layl wa-ṣiyām al-nahār).ʿUbūda means
to employ the heart in God’s service, that it be in front of God, observing His regu-
lation and His wish (Wal-ʿubūda imtihān al-qalb li ‘l-khidma wa-‘mtihānuhu
kawnuhu bayna yadayhi murāqiban li-tadbīrihi wa-mashīʾatihi).
40 See ibid., 135–6, no. 64: fa-khādimu ‘l-ḥaqq munqabiḍ muqtaṣir mutaḥammil
li-athqāli ‘l-ḥaqq … bi-manzilat safīna mūqara qad tashabbathat bi-ḥibālihā
wa-irsāʾihā … wa-manzilat al-ūlā manzilat safīna mūqara aḍʿāf an rufiʿa shirāʿuhā
wa-hājat rīḥ ṭayyiba fa-jarat bihā fī sāʿa wāḥida masīrat yawm …
41 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 30–1, §43.
42 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Dār
al-Rayyān lil-Turāth, 1988), 46 (= 1877, 206); on the state of ‘constraint’ (iḍṭirār),
see also Chapter 8 in this monograph; also Sara Sviri, The Taste of Hidden Things
(Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center, 1997), Ch. 2, especially 41–5.
43 Cf. E. Kohlberg, “The Term ‘Muḥaddath’ in Twelver Shīʿism”, in Studia Orientalia:
Memoriae D.H. Baneth Dedicata (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1979), 39–47; see also
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-Ṣalāt wa-maqāṣidihā, ed. Ḥusnī Naṣr Zaydān (Cairo:
Maṭābiʻ Dār al-Kitāb al-ʻArabī, 1965), 39–40.
44 For the majdhūb’s nature and position according to al-Tirmidhī, see Sīrat al-awliyāʾ,
104ff., §133–4; according to 109 §138, the majdhūb for al-Tirmidhī is the one who is
given the ‘seal (khatm) of the wilāya’; see also al-Tirmidhī’s Kitāb al-Ṣalāt, 36:
“… wa-hum al-muqarrabūn ahl jadhbatihi …”.
45 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 46 §67; see also §68: al-ḥadīth mā aẓhara
[Allāh] min ʿilmihi … fa-yamḍī maʿa ‘l-ḥaqq ilā qalbihi fa-yaqbaluhu ‘l-qalb bi
‘l-sakīna.
46 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, Vol. 9 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risāla, 2001), 144 et
passim; al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 2, Ch. 239 (Fī
khaṣāʾiṣ al-nabī al-ummī), 272 (= 1877, 289).
47 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 4, Dār Ṭawq al-najāt, 174; al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir
al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 1, 351 (= 1877, 57); see also, al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat
al-awliyāʾ, 54f.
48 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥāba, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risāla, 1983),
408; see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 1, 351
(= 1877, 57).
49 Ibid.
50 On this, see in detail Chapter 7 in this monograph.
51 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 2, 42–3
(= 1877, 204); on Mercy preceding Wrath, see Chapter 7 in this monograph.
52 Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, Vol. 6 (Beirut, Dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1998), 135;
al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 1, Ch. 43, 352 (= 1877, 57).
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., and see also the beginning of the chapter, aptly titled “Concerning the Greeting
of al-ḥaqq and the Secret of his Shaking ʿUmar’s Hand”, 351 (= 1877, 57).
55 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 2, 44: fa-kāna
‘l-ghālib ʿalā Abī Bakr al-raḥma fī ayyām al-ḥayāt wal-ghālib ʿalā ʿUmar al-qiyām
bi ’l-ḥaqq wa-taʿzīzuhu … Fa-’stuʿmila hādhā bi ‘l-raḥma wa-hādhā bi ‘l-ḥaqq …”
56 Ibid.; see also, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 131 §16.
57 ‫ ُﻛ ﱞﻞ‬Ibn ‫ َﻭ‬،‫ِﻴﻦ‬ ّ‫ﺧ َُﺮ ﻳَﺄ ْ ُﻣ ُﺮ ﺑِﺎﻟﻠ‬Faḍāʾil
ِ Ḥanbal, ‫ َﻭ ْﺍﻵ‬،ِ‫ﺸﺪﱠﺓ‬ ِ‫ ﺃ َ َﺣﺪُ ُﻫ َﻤﺎ ﻳَﺄ ْ ُﻣ ُﺮ ﺑ‬،Vol.
ّ ِ ‫ﺎﻟ‬al-ṣaḥāba, ِ ‫ﺎءِ َﻣﻠَﻜ‬1,‫ﺴ َﻤ‬
‫َﺎﻥ‬ ‫ “ﻓِﻲ ﺍﻟ‬:َ‫ﺳﻠﱠ َﻢ ﻗَﺎﻝ‬
‫ ﱠ‬243: َ ‫ﺻﻠﱠﻰ ﷲُ َﻋﻠَ ْﻴ ِﻪ َﻭ‬ َ ‫ﻲ‬ ‫ ﺃَ ﱠﻥ ﺍﻟﻨﱠﺒِ ﱠ‬،َ‫ﺳﻠَ َﻤﺔ‬ َ ‫َﻋ ْﻦ ﺃ ُ ِ ّﻡ‬
‫ﺎ‬ ‫ﻤ‬ ‫ﻬ‬
َ ِ ‫ﻴ‬
ْ َ ‫ﻠ‬ ‫ﻋ‬
َ ‫ﻞ‬ُ ‫ِﻴ‬ ‫ﺋ‬ ‫َﺎ‬
‫ﻜ‬ ‫ﻴ‬ ِ‫ﻣ‬ ‫َﺮ‬
ُ ‫ﺧ‬ ‫ﺍﻵ‬ ْ ‫ﻭ‬َ ،ُ
‫ﻞ‬ ‫ﻳ‬ ‫ْﺮ‬ ‫ﺒ‬‫ﺟ‬
ِ ِ َ َ ‫ﺎ‬‫ﻤ‬ ُ ‫ﻫ‬ ُ ‫ﺪ‬ ‫ﺣ‬ َ ‫ﺃ‬ : ٌ‫ﻴﺐ‬ ‫ﺼ‬ ِ ‫ﻣ‬
ُ ‫ﻞ‬‫ﱞ‬ ُ
‫ﻛ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ،
َ ِ ِ ُ‫ِﻴﻦ‬ّ ‫ﻠ‬ ‫ﺎﻟ‬‫ﺑ‬ ‫ﺮ‬
ُ ‫ﻣ‬ْ ‫ﺄ‬‫ﻳ‬
َ ‫َﺮ‬
ُ ‫ﺧ‬ ْ
‫ﺍﻵ‬ ‫ﻭ‬َ ،ِ ‫ﺓ‬‫ﱠ‬ ‫ﺪ‬‫ﺸ‬ّ ِ ‫ﺎﻟ‬‫ﺑ‬ ُ ْ
ِ ُ َ َ ِ َ َ‫ﺴ‬
‫ﺮ‬ ‫ﻣ‬ ‫ﺄ‬‫ﻳ‬
َ ‫ﺎ‬‫ﻤ‬ ُ
‫ﻫ‬ ُ ‫ﺪ‬ ‫ﺣ‬ َ ‫ﺃ‬ ، ‫َﺎﻥ‬
‫ﻜ‬ َ ‫ﻠ‬ ‫ﻣ‬ ِ‫ﺎء‬‫ﻤ‬ ‫ ”“ﻓِﻲ ﺍﻟ ﱠ‬:َ‫ﺳﻠﱠ َﻢ ﻗَﺎﻝ‬ َ ‫ﻰ ﷲُ َﻋﻠَ ْﻴ ِﻪ َﻭ‬
‫ﺒ‬
‫ِﻲ‬ ‫ﻟ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ،
َ ُ ‫ﻡ‬‫ﱠﻼ‬ َ ‫ﺴ‬ ‫ﺍﻟ‬ ‫ﺎ‬ ‫ﻤ‬ ‫ﻬ‬ ‫ﻴ‬
ْ َ ‫ﻠ‬ ‫ﻋ‬ ‫ﺡ‬
َ ِ َ ٌ َ ُ َ ِ ٌ‫ﺼﻴﺐ‬‫ُﻮ‬ ‫ﻧ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ‫ﻢ‬ ‫ِﻴ‬
‫ﻫ‬ ‫ﺍ‬ ‫ْﺮ‬ ‫ﺑ‬ ‫ﺇ‬ ُ
ِ ‫ َﻭﻛ ﱞﻞ ُﻣ‬،ِ‫ﺸﺪﱠﺓ‬ ْ ْ
ّ ِ ‫ َﻭﺍﻵﺧ َُﺮ ﻳَﺄ ُﻣ ُﺮ ﺑِﺎﻟ‬،‫ِﻴﻦ‬ ّ ْ
ِ ‫ﱠﺎﻥ ﺃ َﺣﺪُ ُﻫ َﻤﺎ ﻳَﺄ ُﻣ ُﺮ ﺑِﺎﻟﻠ‬َ ِ ‫ َﻭﻧَﺒِﻴ‬،‫ َﻭ ْﺍﻵﺧ َُﺮ ﻣِ ﻴﻜَﺎﺋِﻴ ُﻞ َﻋﻠ ْﻴ ِﻬ َﻤﺎ ﺍﻟﺴﱠﻼ ُﻡ‬،ُ‫ِﺟﺒ ِْﺮﻳﻞ‬
َ َ
ْ
َ ‫ﺿ‬ ِ ‫ﻋ َﻤ َﺮ َﺭ‬ ُ ‫ َﻭﺫَﻛ ََﺮ ﺃَﺑَﺎ ﺑَ ْﻜ ٍ ﺮ َﻭ‬،“ ٌ‫ﺼﻴﺐ‬ ِ ‫ َﻭ ُﻛ ﱞﻞ ُﻣ‬،ِ‫ﺸﺪﱠﺓ‬ ّ ِ ‫ َﻭ ْﺍﻵﺧ َُﺮ ﻳَﺄ ْ ُﻣ ُﺮ ِﺑﺎﻟ‬،‫ِﻴﻦ‬ ّ ‫ ﺃَ َﺣﺪُ ُﻫ َﻤﺎ ﻳَﺄ ْ ُﻣ ُﺮ ِﺑ‬،‫ﺎﻥ‬
ِ ‫ﺎﻟﻠ‬ ِ َ‫ﺻﺎﺣِ ﺒ‬ َ ‫  َﻭﻟِﻲ‬Also, ،‫ِﺇﺑ َْﺮﺍﻫِﻴ ُﻢ َﻭﻧُﻮ ٌﺡ َﻋ َﻠ ْﻴ ِﻬ َﻤﺎ ﺍﻟﺴ َﱠﻼ ُﻡ‬
.‫ﻲ ﱠ ُ َﻋ ْﻨ ُﻬ َﻤﺎ‬ َ ‫ﺿ‬ ِ Aḥmad
‫ﺭ‬
َ ‫ﺮ‬ َ ‫ﻤ‬َ ‫ﻋ‬
ُ ‫ﻭ‬
َ ibn Ḥanbal, Kanz al-ʿummāl fī sunan al-aqwāl wal-
afʿāl, Vol. 11 (Beirut:Muʾassasat al-risāla, 1981), 563 (no. 32665):
212   Polarity
‫ ﺃﺣﺪﻫﻤﺎ ﺟﺒﺮﻳﻞ ﻭﺍﻵﺧﺮ ﻣﻴﻜﺎﺋﻴﻞ؛ ﻭﻧﺒﻴﺎﻥ‬،‫ ﺃﺣﺪﻫﻤﺎ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﺸﺪﺓ ﻭﺍﻵﺧﺮ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﻠﻴﻦ ﻭﻛﻼﻫﻤﺎ ﻣﺼﻴﺐ‬:‫ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺴﻤﺎء ﻣﻠﻜﺎﻥ‬
‫ ﺇﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢ ﻭﻧﻮﺡ؛ ﻭﻟﻲ ﺻﺎﺣﺒﺎﻥ ﺃﺣﺪﻫﻤﺎ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﻠﻴﻦ ﻭﺍﻵﺧﺮ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ‬:‫ﺃﺣﺪﻫﻤﺎ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﻠﻴﻦ ﻭﺍﻵﺧﺮ ﻳﺄﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﺸﺪﺓ ﻭﻛﻞ ﻣﺼﻴﺐ‬
.‫ ﺃﺑﻮ ﺑﻜﺮ ﻭﻋﻤﺮ‬:‫ ﺑﺎﻟﺸﺪﺓ ﻭﻛﻞ ﻣﺼﻴﺐ‬See also Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʻjam
al-Kabīr, ed. Ḥamdī ʻAbd al-Majīd Salafī, Vol. 23 (Baghdād: al-Dār al-ʻArabīyah
lil-Ṭibāʻah, 1978), 315–16. These analogies are reminiscent of the Jewish tradi-
tions, in which Abraham and Michael are likened to the ‘measure of Mercy’ (middat
ha-ḥesed) and Isaac and Gabriel to the ‘measure of Judgement’ (middat ha-dīn) – see,
for example, Yehuda Liebes, “De Natura Dei: On the Development of the Jewish
Myth”, in Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany, NY: State Univer-
sity of New York Press, 1993), 30ff. It should also be mentioned that, in a Jewish
piyyuṭ, found in the eleventh-century Maḥzor Vitry, the following verses occur: “On
our right Michael, on our left Gabriel and on our heads God’s shekhina every day and
every night” – see www.bl.uk/collection-items/mahzor-vitry-add-ms-27200-27201; with
thanks to Prof. Yehuda Liebes.
58 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 1, al-aṣl al-67,
444–71 (= Istanbul 1877, 95–107).
59 Ibid., 449–50 (= 1877, 97ff); cf. above, [nn 33–4].
60 Ibid. On Banū Isrāʾīl, see Uri Rubin, Between Bible and Qurʾān: The Children of
Israel and the Islamic Self-Image (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1999); Uri Rubin,
“Children of Israel”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam3 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_
COM_24398); also Uri Rubin, “Jews and Judaism”, Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, Vol. 3
(Leiden: Brill, 2003), 21–34.
61 See, for example, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, ed. Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ
al-turāth al-ʿarabī, 2018); Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad al-Imām
Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1993), 519; al-Tirmidhī,
Nawādir al-uṣūl, al-aṣl 162, 205.
62 See also Chapter 7 in this monograph.
63 Can also be translated as “God has mercy upon you”.
64 See also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Vol. 1: al-aṣl 119, 605–6; for Adam’s
sneezing according to Muqātil’s Tafsīr, see also Chapter 7 in this monograph.
65 See, for example, E.S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults,
Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore (Leiden: Brill 1962 [1937]), 382.
66 See Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Begin-
nings of Christianity (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1991), 56, 204ff.
67 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl, 74; see also Sara Sviri, “Does God Pray”, European
Judaism 25 (1992): 48–55.
68 For an elaborate deterministic vision of human character and characteristic, see for
example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Vol. 2, Ch. 261, 463–73:
­“Concerning the One-Hundred-Seventeen Divine Qualities” (= 1877, 357–61).
69 Cf. Sara Sviri, “Spiritual Trends in Pre-Kabbalistic Judeo-Spanish Literature”,
Donaire 6 (1966): 78–84; also Sara Sviri, “Jewish – Muslim Mystical Encounters in
the Middle Ages With Particular Attention to al-Andalus (Muslim Spain)”, in Mysti-
cism among Jews in the Islamic Middle Ages until 1500 The Cambridge History of
Judaism Vols. 5 and 6 (forthcoming). See also Chapter 11 in this monograph.
70 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Vol. 2, Ch. 161, 39–40: “Concerning the
Prophet’s prayer for his community” (= 1877, 203–4).
71 Cf. the dictum of the Mishnah (redacted late third century), Yomah 8:9: “For those
transgressions that are between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones, but for those
transgressions that are between man and his fellow man, Yom Kippur does not
provide atonement until he pacifies his fellow man.”
72 Probably a copyist or editor’s interpolation.
73 Ditto.
 Faces of al-Ḥaqq   213
74 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Vol. 2, Ch. 161, 39–40: “Concerning the
Prophet’s prayer for his community” (= 1877, 203–4).
75 Note the interesting analogy to Midrash Rabbah Exodus 43:1 (on Exodus 32:11: “But
Moses implored the LORD his God and said, ‘O LORD, why does your wrath burn
hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great
power and with a mighty hand?’ ”). According to Midrash Rabbah Exodus 43:1,
Moses acts as the ‘good counsellor’ (ha-sanegor ha-tov) who challenges middat
ha-dīn whereas his opponent, Satan the Accuser (ha-satan ha-mekatreg) demands
hard punishment.
Part IV
The spiritual hierarchy
10 Wilāya
Contemplating friendship with God

In the wake of prophecy

Wilāya, also walāya, friendship of man and God, lies at the heart of Islamic
mysticism. The term designates a spiritual hierarchy of human beings who have
attained an intimate relationship with God and as such have a special role in the
maintenance, preservation and well-being of the world.
Belief in the existence of a spiritual human hierarchy without whom the
world cannot exist entails that at all times a certain number of righteous men,
known as awliyāʾ, abdāl, ṣiddīqūn and other appellations, must be present in the
world. They are chosen by God to embody, inspire and perpetuate the sacred
knowledge of God (ʿilm Allāh). This knowledge is not available to everyone, not
even to the religious scholars, the ʿulamāʾ. Contrasted with the ‘exterior know-
ledge’ (al-ʿilm al-ẓāhir) of the ʿulamāʾ acquired through learning, convention
and transmission, the knowledge of the awliyāʾ is often referred to as the ‘inner
knowledge’ (al-ʿilm al-bāṭin), the knowledge of the heart (ʿilm al-qalb) or ‘the
knowledge that is with God’ (al-ʿilm al-ladunī). The rise of a belief in a hier-
archy of inspired and God-elected ‘knowers’ is bound up with the doctrine of
the cessation of prophecy. The death of the Prophet Muḥammad (in the year
11/632) defined the phenomenon of prophecy as finite and complete: according
to Q. 33:40, Muḥammad held the “Seal of Prophecy” (khatm al-nubuwwa),
namely, with him it was sealed forever.1 But this did not mean that the link
between God and human beings, via a number of chosen ones, was cut off.
Rather, in the eyes of pious Muslims, such a link remained alive and perpetuated –
for the existence of the world, as well as its well-being, was seen as contingent
upon the presence in it of a spiritual hierarchy of chosen ones.2 Seen from a
wider Islamic perspective, the death of Muḥammad initiated troubling questions
concerning who would carry on the grand scheme of prophecy; who would be
vouchsafed the divine authority to succeed the prophets. Such questions stood at
the heart of the animated, often bloody, political and sectarian rifts and debates
of the first Islamic centuries and beyond. The question of who the true ‘inher-
itors’ (waratha, sg. wārith) of the prophets were, was – and still is – the main
bone of contention between ahl al-sunna, eventually known as Sunnīs and the
Shīʿīs. The former argued that, according to a prophetic ḥadīth, ‘the inheritors of
218   The spiritual hierarchy
the Prophets are the religious scholars’ – inna ‘l-ʿulamāʾ warathatu ‘l-anbiyāʾ;3
while the latter saw in the Imāms, the progenies of ʿAlī, the Prophet’s son-in-
law and Fāṭima, the Prophet’s daughter, the sole legitimate and authoritative
inheritors.4 The mystics, although largely adhering to ahl al-sunna, took a
different position, arguing that the true inheritors of the prophets were the
‘Friends of God’, and that by ʿulamāʾ (the possessors of knowledge), the
Prophet referred to those who possessed the true, hidden knowledge of God –
they are the true ‘Knowers of God’ (al-ʿārifūn, al-ʿulamāʾ bi-llāh).5 Literary
evidence shows that, since the early days of Islamic mysticism, the belief in the
perpetual existence of ‘God’s friends’ had been widespread and established.
Accordingly, the abiding connection of God and Man had become a valid cer-
tainty. Here are a few examples:
In the introduction to Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ (The Ornament of the Friends of
God), a voluminous hagiographic compilation in which a large stock of tradi-
tions and sayings in praise of the awliyāʾ is assembled, Abū Nuʿaym
al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038) sketches the vision of a spiritual hierarchy: it is struc-
tured as a human pyramid – wide at the bottom and pointed at the top – and
modelled on prophets and angels. He cites the following tradition in the name
of the Prophet:

There are three hundred men whose hearts are modelled on the heart of
Adam; forty whose hearts are modelled on the heart of Moses; seven on the
heart of Abraham; five on the heart of Gabriel; three on the heart of
Michael; and one on the heart of Isrāfīl.6 If the ‘one’ dies, God replaces him
with one of the three; if one of the three dies, God replaces him with one of
the five – and so on; and if one of the three hundred dies, God replaces him
with one of the ordinary people (al-ʿāmma).7

Another tradition which Abū Nuʿaym cites, stipulates perpetuity thus:

The Apostle of God – May God’s prayer and blessing be on him – said: “In
each generation there are in my congregation five hundred virtuous men
(akhyār) and forty substitutes (abdāl). Neither the [number of] five hundred
nor of the forty ever decrease: whenever one of the [forty] dies, God replaces
him with one of the five hundred and he becomes one of the forty”.8

The Arabic terms walī (friend) and its plural awliyāʾ, as well as the infinitive
form wilāya or walāya, have become universally identifiable as the Islamic equi-
valent of what is known in other traditions as ‘saint’ or ‘holy man’. The term
occurs in several Qurʾānic verses, at times in the pejorative sense of awliyāʾ
al-shayṭān (“the friends of Satan”, as, e.g. in Q. 4:76, 7:30) and awliyāʾ al-kuffār
(“the friends of the infidels”, as, e.g. in Q. 3:28, 4:139). Nevertheless, the exist-
ence of an exceptional human category of awliyāʾ Allāh, the Friends of God, is
founded on Q. 10:62: “Surely God’s friends – no fear shall be on them, neither
shall they sorrow”9 (alā inna awliyāʾ a ‘llāh lā khawf a ʿalayhim wa-lā hum
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   219
yaḥzanūn). Commenting on this verse, Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) writes: “They
are those whom God’s messenger described thus: ‘When they are seen, God is
remembered’ (idhā ruʾū dhukira ‘llāh)”.10 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, too, refers to
this verse in the context of the following ḥadīth on the Prophet’s authority:

“Among God’s worshippers there are people (unās) who are neither prophets
nor martyrs, yet on the Day of Resurrection the prophets and the martyrs will
envy them their place with God ( yaghbiṭuhum al-anbiyāʾ wal-shuhadāʾ yawma
‘l-qiyāma bi-makānihim min Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla).” When asked who they are
and what are their deeds, the Prophet said: “They are people who love each
other in the spirit of God ( yataḥābbūna bi-rūḥ i ‘llāh), with no kinsmanship
amongst them (min ghayr arḥām baynahum), nor do they have assets that they
share with one another (wa-lā amwāl yataʿāṭawnahā baynahum). By God, their
faces are light, they sit on pulpits of light. They do not fear when people fear,
and they are not sad when people are sad – then the Prophet cited ‘Surely God’s
friends – no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow’.”11

The vision of the ‘friends’ as strongholds upon which the very existence of the
world rests is reflected in a commentary to Q. 16:15: “And He cast on the earth
firm mountains (wa-alqā fī ‘l-arḍ rawāsī)”. In his Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (Subtleties
of Allusions), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) explains that in plain language
( fī ‘l-ẓāhir), rawāsī means simply mountains; on the level of allusion (ishāra),
however, it alludes to the awliyāʾ, for they are the salvation of created beings
(hum ghiyāth al-khalq); thanks to them God has mercy on His created beings
and delivers them (bihim yarḥamuhum wa-bihim yughīthuhum). Among them
are substitutes (abdāl), stakes (awtād) and the Axis (quṭb).12
A personal description of the hierarchy appears in Sahl al-Tustarī’s Tafsīr; he
writes:

“I have met one thousand five hundred righteous ones (ṣiddīq), among them
forty ‘substitutes’ (badīl or abdāl) and seven ‘stakes’ (awtād). Their path
and method are the same as mine.”
“He was asked: Why are the abdāl thus named? He said, for they substitute
(= change) their states (li-annahum yubaddilūna ‘l-aḥwāl). In their innermost
( fī sirrihim), they have removed their bodies from ruses (ḥiyal), then they
keep moving from state (ḥāl) to state, from knowledge (ʿilm) to knowledge;
their knowledge of that which is between them and their Lord is ever on the
increase ( fī ‘l-mazīd min al-ʿilm fī-mā baynahum wa-bayna rabbihim).”
“He was asked: Who are more distinguished – the awtād or the abdāl? He
said, the awtād. He was asked: How is this? He said: For the awtād have
arrived (qad balaghū) and their foundations (arkān) have become firm,
while the abdāl move from state to state.”13

Descriptions in this vein of a ‘hierarchy’ which is not founded on religious,

social, cultural or political affiliations and merits; the build-up of ethical and
220   The spiritual hierarchy
spiritual characteristics as the parameters of excellence and nearness to God
while playing down political and religious affiliation, power and kinship – all
these suggest a value-system distinct from what was held by most contemporary
sectarian groups. Hence, for most circles within Early Islam (as well as later),
the notion of a spiritual hierarchy and its perpetuity seemed faulty, threatening,
challenging and deserved to be refuted.14
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, who occupies a pivotal position in this monograph,
has been celebrated in the Ṣūfī lore for his assiduous examination of ʿilm
al-awliyāʾ, the phenomenology of the ‘Friends of God’.15 His insights and refer-
ences, often radical, are strewn throughout his literary output: In the traditions
that he cites and his elaborations thereof; in his correspondence and answers to
questions; in his commentaries and linguistic contemplations; in the dreams and
intuitions that he records – in all these facets of his writing, themes connected
with ‘the spiritual hierarchy’ and the special knowledge of the awliyāʾ exceed all
others – in fact, they are the very axis of his work. From the perspective of his
writings, ʿilm al-awliyāʾ appears like a huge tree from which all else branches
off; hence, discussions concerning the ‘Friends of God’ are dispersed throughout
this monograph.16 In surveying his works, these branches can be observed from
several aspects: Anthropologically – what makes a flesh-and-blood human being
eligible to becoming a member of the hierarchy of God’s friends. This aspect
fills up many pages of al-Tirmidhī’s psychological analyses and insights,
namely, his teaching of riyāḍāt al-nafs, the training of the lower-self. Spatially –
a less researched aspect of al-Tirmidhī’s work is his visualization of the cosmic
spaces in which the awliyāʾ abide – Where are the awliyāʾ to be found?
Al-Tirmidhī envisions the ‘friends’ as positioned, even during their lifetime, in
heavenly locations (maḥāll, manāzil), arranged by ascending ranks (darajāt,
marātib). These ranks and stations are alluded to in al-Tirmidhī’s ‘question-
naire’ – the 150 questions which he included in his Sīrat al-awliyāʾ but left
unanswered.17 It was Ibn al-ʿArabī who, some 300 years later, set out to answer
them one by one.18 The questionnaire was designed as a challenge to those who
discuss matters pertaining to the awliyāʾ with no immediate knowledge, only
quoting and rehearsing what they had heard or read: “Such a one talks in the
idiom of the Friends, assembling what he had heard from former ones or based
on stories and morality tales that he had read ( yanṭiqu bi-kalām al-awliyāʾ
iltiqāṭan ʿan afwāh al-māḍīn wa-kutubihim wa-ḥikāyāt wa-maqāyīs).”19
To expose the pretence of such a one and to test his genuine knowledge,
al-Tirmidhī challenges him thus: “Describe to us the locations of the awliyāʾ
after they had exhausted their sincere efforts and were brought close [to God]”
(ṣif lanā manāzil al-awliyāʾ idhā ‘stfraghū majhūd al-ṣidq fa-qurribū).”20
Obviously, the challenged one cannot supply the correct answers. This mys-
tery is only known directly, namely, by means of an immediate God-inspired
revelation. Al-Tirmidhī concludes the questionnaire with an affirmative note:

This and similar to this is what the knowledge of the Prophets and the
Friends entails; by this knowledge they contemplate God’s governance and
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   221
by it they act upon it and fulfill their worship to God ( fa-hādhā wa-ashbāhu
hādhā huwa ʿilm al-anbiyāʾ wal-awliyāʾ, bi-hādhā ‘l-ʿilm yuṭāliʿūna
tadbīrahu wa-bi-hādhā ‘l-ʿilm yuʿāmilūna wa-yaqūmūna bi ‘l-ʿibāda lahu);
for to the one for whom the cover has been lifted, the Supernal Hidden is
revealed to the extent that he beholds the Divine Kingdom (li-anna man
kushifa lahu ‘l-ghiṭāʾ ʿan hādhā ‘l-nawʿ min al-ʿilm fa-innamā futiḥa lahu fī
‘l-ghayb al-aʿlā ḥattā lāḥaẓa mulk al-mulk).21

The third branch of al-Tirmidhī’s ‘tree’ is temporality – does the awliyāʾ ‘s exist-
ence have a time limit as Prophecy had? In al-Tirmidhī’s vision, the perpetuation
of the human link between God and His creation will endure till the apocalyptic
moment of the end of the world. This is when the formidable figure of the ‘Seal
of the Friends’ (khātam al-awliyāʾ), modelled upon the ‘Seal of the Prophets’,
will appear and the great Day of Judgement will take place.22

Abdāl and ṣiddīqūn

One of al-Tirmidhī’s seminal works, copiously referred to in this monograph, is
Nawādir al-uṣūl, the collection of ‘precious’ (or ‘rare’) traditions. In Chapter 51,
titled “Explicating the Number of the abdāl and their Qualities” (Fī bayān ʿadad
al-abdāl wa-ṣifātihim),23 al-Tirmidhī cites several traditions which affirm the
continual presence and number of that special group of people named here abdāl
or budalāʾ. In one of these traditions, recorded on the authority of Abū al-Dardāʾ
(d. 32/652), one of the distinguished Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad,
the abdāl are referred to as the khulafāʾ of the prophets (khulafāʾ min
al-anbiyāʾ):

The prophets were the stakes of the earth (awtād al-arḍ), but when prophecy
ended, God put in their place (abdala makānahum) a group from among the
people of Aḥmad (= Muḥammad) who are [therefore] named abdāl.24 … They
are the successors of the prophets (khulafāʾ min al-anbiyāʾ), people whom
God has elected for Himself and has appropriated for Himself by His know-
ledge (istakhlaṣahum bi-ʿilmihi li-nafsihi)…. They are forty righteous men
( fa-hum arbaʿūn ṣiddīqan). … Due to them, misfortunes are removed from the
denizens of the world; due to them rains fall, and people are nourished. At all
times, when one of them dies, God elects another to succeed him.25

The theme of the abdāl has been explored in numerous publications.26 Com-
parative materials, too, have been adduced, especially from the Jewish lore,
­concerning the abiding need for a certain number of ‘righteous’ to exist for the
preservation and well-being of the world.27 The etymological relationship of
ṣiddīqūn with the Hebrew zaddīqīm and the Aramaic zadīkāye has also been
pointed out (for more, see Chapter 11).28 Based on a dream in al-Tirmidhī’s
autobiography, I have suggested that al-Tirmidhī viewed himself as one of the
forty abdāl.29
222   The spiritual hierarchy
Al-Tirmidhī goes on to cite an additional tradition on the authority of a somewhat
later transmitter, Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. 109/728), a Yemenite Jew who con-
verted to Islam and became one of the main sources for traditions from the lore
of the Israelites (isrāʾīliyyāt).30 According to al-Tirmidhī’s version, Wahb
reports that, in the wake of the cessation of prophecy, Moses, concerned with the
plight of the earth, prayed to God.31 In response, God announces that he shall
bestow his divine affiliation on forty chosen men, saying,

These are forty righteous men, all of them are by Me, for Me, to Me (hum
arbaʿūna ṣiddīqan kulluhum bī wa-lī wa-ilayya). Then, God reassures the earth:
“I shall surely place on top of you forty righteous men (sawfa ajʿalu ʿalā ẓahriki
ṣiddīqīna arbaʿīna)” – and the earth was appeased ( fa-sakanat).

Interestingly, the tradition on the benign role of the prophets, which is taken
over by the successors, has the earth in mind. The picture that transpires is this:
the prophets had been the stronghold and anchors – the ‘stakes’ (awtād) – of the
earth; now that their presence in the world has ended, what will become of the
earth and consequently also of its inhabitants? It is evident, therefore, that by
pledging that a definite number of righteous men (ṣiddīqīna arbaʿīna) would
perpetually become the successors (khulafāʾ) of the prophets, God promises to
vouchsafe the well-being of the entire world.
For al-Tirmidhī, the immediate association of ṣiddīqūn with ṣidq – veracity,
sincerity – and with the verbal root ṣ-d-q, stems from his emphasis on the moral
integrity that characterizes these special men, an integrity that outweighs scrupu-
lous worship. This transpires, for example, from the following elaboration:

These righteous men are distinguished from the rest of human beings by
dint of the sincerity of their hearts to God (bi-ṣidq al-qulūb maʿa ‘llāh), not
[by] their sincerity to [religious] acts (aʿmāl) [carried out] along with angels
and worshippers (lā bi-ṣidq al-aʿmāl maʿa ‘l-malāʾika wal-ʿummāl). The
hearts of the latter have no path to God, for the path of their hearts is toward
reward. In contrast, the prophets and the righteous, for them the cover has
been lifted (wal-anbiyāʾ wal-ṣiddīqūn qad inkashafa ‘l-ghiṭāʾ ʿanhum) and
the road of worshipping God as if they see Him has been opened to them.32

In Sīrat al-awliyāʾ (The Path of the Friends of God), variably titled also Khatm
al-awliyāʾ (The Seal of the Friends),33 the theme of moral excellence is associ-
ated with Abū Bakr, the first Caliph, whose traditional epithet is al-Ṣiddīq.
Al-Tirmidhī cites the following tradition: “Abū Bakr did not excel people in pro-
fuse praying or fasting; rather, he excelled them due to something that was in his
heart (lam yafḍal abū bakr al-nās bi-kathrat ṣawm wa-lā ṣalāt innamā
faḍalahum bi-shayʾin kāna fī qalbihi).”34 Noteworthy is al-Tirmidhī’s comment
in Nawādir al-uṣūl, Chapter 43: “The name ṣiddīq is necessarily applied only to
one who acts with sincerity (ṣidq) in all his affairs (innamā yalzamu ism
al-ṣiddīq man aqāma ‘l-ṣidq fī umūrihi kullihā).”35
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   223
Ṣidq is important also to Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899), a contemporary
of al-Tirmidhī, among whose Epistles one is titled Kitāb al-Ṣidq. In it, based on
a thorough survey of Qurʾānic verses and traditions, al-Kharrāz investigates the
virtue of ‘sincerity’ (or ‘truthfulness’ in Arberry’s translation) in its relationship
to the associated qualities of faithfulness (ikhlāṣ) and perseverance (ṣabr). He
writes:

Know that a disciple who is established in his faith and who aspires to walk
the path of salvation must abide by three principles upon which he should
act …: the first is faithfulness (ikhlāṣ) … then sincerity (ṣidq) and thirdly
perseverance (ṣabr).36

Definitions and teachings concerning ṣidq appear in most Ṣūfī compilations,

especially in lists and descriptions of praiseworthy qualities which the sincere
mystic should acquire and apply. Al-Qushayrī, in the chapter on ṣidq in the
Risāla, writes:

Sincerity (ṣidq) is the pillar of this affair; by it the affair is complete and in
order. It is adjacent to the rank of prophecy, for God said: “They are with
those whom God has blessed: prophets (al-nabiyyīn), righteous men
(al-ṣiddīqīn), martyrs (al-shuhadāʾ), the virtuous (al-ṣāliḥīn); good compan-
ions they!” (Q. 4:69).37

‘This affair’ (hādhā ‘l-amr) is a familiar turn of speech by which Ṣūfī authors
often refer to the mystical path. Evidently, moral superiority, linguistically
exhibited by ṣidq and the various occurrences of the radical ṣ-d-q, lies at the
foundation of the ‘Friends of God’ phenomenon.38

Qadam ṣidq, Shafāʿa, Khatm and the end of days

One of these occurrences is the idiom qadam ṣidq (‘the footstep of sincerity’, ‘a
sure footing’ in Arberry’s translation). It occurs once in Q. 10:2: “Warn the
people, and give good tidings to the believers that they have a sure footing with
their Lord? (andhir al-nās wa-bashshir alladhīna āmanū anna lahum qadam
ṣidq ʿinda rabbihim).”39 This verse implies both warning and reassurance. Both
are to be delivered to the people by the Prophet: he is to warn them and at the
same time also to reassure them of the consequences of their belief or unbelief.
Al-Sulamī, in his Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr (The True Meanings of Commentary) – a
highly celebrated compilation of Ṣūfī Qurʾān commentaries, cites al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī:

Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī commented: ‘the footstep of sincerity’ is the

leader of the righteous and the extremely righteous (qadam ṣidq huwa imām
al-ṣādīqīn wal-ṣiddīqīn); he is the intercessor who is obeyed (wa-huwa
224   The spiritual hierarchy
‘l-shafīʿ al-muṭāʿ), the one who asks and is answered (wal-sāʾil al-mujāb),
[i.e. he is] Muḥammad, May God’s prayer be with him.40

Indeed, this is in keeping with what we find in al-Tirmidhī’s Sīrat al-awliyāʾ. In

a remarkable passage, al-Tirmidhī explains that, as long as Muḥammad was
alive and in office, the knowledge of God (al-ʿilm bi ‘llāh), was the prerogative
of the prophets.41 Yet besides this general feature of prophecy, God bestowed on
Muḥammad two additional gifts by which he surpassed the rest of the prophets:
First, the position of the ‘seal’ (khātim or khātam), namely, being the last and
the most accomplished of all the previous prophets; second, intercession
(shafāʿa), the power to intercede on behalf of those who had erred from among
the believers in God’s oneness (al-muwaḥḥidūn), the prophets included. Thus,
on the day when all other prophets would have to answer for their own ‘sincer-
ity’ (ṣidq) or lack thereof and await God’s pardon, Muḥammad would step
­forward with ‘the footstep of sincerity’ (fa-lahu qadam ṣidq), bearing no blem-
ish and no record of Satanic or self-centred temptations.42 Here is a section by
section translation of this passage:

Prophecy is the knowledge of God when the cover is lifted and when the
secrets of the Hidden are beheld with a penetrating sight of things by means
of God’s perfect light (fal-nubuwwa huwa ‘l-ʿilm bi-llāh ʿalā kashf al-ghiṭāʾ
wa-ʿalā iṭṭilāʿ asrār min al-ghayb wa-baṣar nāfidh fī ‘l-ashyāʾ bi-nūr Allāh
al-tāmm). Therefore, Muḥammad was able to proceed with a footstep of
sincerity (fa-min ajli hādhā qadara Muḥammad an yaʾtiya bi-qadam ṣidq)
when all steps were aligned (idhā ‘stawat al-aqdām), namely the footsteps
of the prophets in their lines ( yaʿnī aqdām al-anbiyāʾ fī ṣaffihā).
(§63)

So much for prophecy in general. As for Muḥammad, al-Tirmidhī proceeds:

Then, when the sincere ones (al-ṣādiqūn) will be asked about their sincerity
(ʿan ṣidqihim) and the prophets [too] will be in need of God’s forgiveness,
then Muḥammad will step forward in front of them with the footstep of sin-
cerity (bi-khuṭwat al-ṣidq) which God bestowed on him in generosity and
benevolence and by which he surpassed the host of all the prophets, for he
was given prophecy and sealed it (bi-annahu uʿṭiya ‘l-nubuwwa wa-khatama
ʿalayhā) – no adversary spoke to him nor did the self take her share from him
(fa-lam yukallimhu ʿaduww wa-lā akhadhat al-nafs bi-ḥaẓẓihā minhu).
(§63)

At this point, al-Tirmidhī introduces the aforementioned verse (Q. 10:2) and

comments:

Since God knows that His saying “warn the people” baffles the minds of
the sincere ones ( yudhhilu ʿuqūl al-ṣādiqīn), He went on to say “and give
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   225
good tidings to the believers that they have a sure footing with their
Lord”; that is to say, I warn you [of the day] of meeting Me when you will
stand in front of My Glory and Majesty, for then I will demand of you the
sincerity of your worship. However, give good tidings to the believers that
they have the footstep of sincerity (fa-bashshir al-muʾminīn anna lahum
qadam ṣidq). [The footstep of sincerity (qadam ṣidq)] is that man to
whom We have revealed the warning by prophetic inspiration. To the
extent that upon his tongue are threat and warning which baffle the minds,
he also has the footstep of sincerity; on that day, with his sincerity he will
avert from you the lapses and neglect with regards to the commitments of
prophecy.43

Hence, Muḥammad is ‘the footstep of sincerity’ and as such he will intercede for
those, even among the prophets, who fall short of fulfilling their sincere worship
and duties. But then, who will become that ‘footstep of sincerity’ after the cessa-
tion of prophecy? Al-Tirmidhī writes:

Then, when God gathered His prophet to Himself (lammā qabaḍa ‘llāh
nabiyyahu), He brought forth forty righteous men from among his com-
munity by whom the earth is sustained (ṣayyara fī ummatihi arbaʿīna
ṣiddīqan bi-him taqūmu ‘l-arḍ). They are his kinsmen and family (fa-hum
ahl baytihi wa-ālihi),44 whenever one of them dies, another succeeds him
and comes in his place (kulla-mā māta minhum rajul khalafahu ākhar
yaqūmu maqāmahu).45

Finally, in a dramatic apocalyptic vision of the end of days, a very special walī
is sent forth; this is the Lord of the awliyāʾ (sayyid al-awliyāʾ) and their seal
(khātam al-awliyāʾ). Al-Tirmidhī writes:

[This goes on] till the number [of successors] is exhausted (ḥattā idhā
‘nqaraḍa ʿadaduhum) and the time of the end of the world arrives (wa-atā
waqt zawāl al-dunyā). Then God will send forth a walī that He has chosen
and elected and has brought close to Him (ibtaʿatha Allāh waliyyan iṣṭfāhu
wa-‘jtabāhu wa-qarrabahu wa-adnāhu). He will give him what he gave
the awliyāʾ and will single him out by [giving him also] the seal of friend-
ship (wa-aʿṭāhu mā aʿṭā ‘l-awliyāʾ wa-khaṣṣahu bi-khātam al-wilāya). He
will become the proof of God in the Day of Resurrection in front of the
rest of the friends (fa-yakūnu ḥujjata Allāh yawma ‘l-qiyāma ʿalā jamīʿ
al-awliyāʾ). Thanks to this seal, the sincerity of wilāya will be found with
him, in analogy to the sincerity of prophecy that was found with
Muḥammad (fa-yūjadu ʿindahu bi-dhālika ‘l-khatm ṣidq al-wilāya ʿalā
sabīl mā wujida ʿinda muḥammad ṣidq al-nubuwwa).46

Seal and sincerity are not the only similarities that al-Tirmidhī makes between
the ‘seal of the prophets’ and the ‘seal of the awliyāʾ ‘. He also repeats, with
226   The spiritual hierarchy
slight modifications only, the phrase that he had used in describing
Muḥammad’s incorruptibility vis-à-vis any tempting agent:

… no adversary spoke to him nor did the self find a route by which to take
her share in the wilāya (fa-lam yukallimhu ʿaduww wa-lā wajadat al-nafs
sabīlan ilā ‘l-akhdh bi-ḥaẓẓihā min al-wilāya).
(§64, 45)

Furthermore, the seal of the awliyāʾ, too, is given the power to intercede on
behalf of all the awliyāʾ as well as of the muwaḥḥidūn:

He would be their intercessor (wa-kāna shafīʿahum), the leader of the

awliyāʾ (imām al-awliyāʾ), their lord (fa-huwa sayyiduhum), he would lord
over the awliyāʾ as Muḥammad lorded over the prophets (sāda ‘l-awliyāʾ
kamā sāda muḥammad al-anbiyāʾ).47

This phenomenal personality and its cosmic role is described by al-Ḥakīm

al-Tirmidhī in terms that Ibn al-ʿArabī, about three centuries later, will match up
in the description of the Complete Man, al-insān al-kāmil.

The great intimacy

The close relationship of the ‘friend’ with God is a dramatic as well as intimate
affair. Mystical intimacy, uns, between God and His friends, is known as one of the
mystical states, aḥwāl, through which the mystic goes. In lists of ‘states’, uns
occurs as one of the more advanced states and is usually contrasted with hayba,
awe, both signifying the intensified polar emotions that nearness to God entails:
Witnessing God’s Majesty (jalāl) awakens awe (hayba), whereas witnessing God’s
Beauty (jamāl) awakens love and intimacy. This is described succinctly by Najm
al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618/1221) in his Breaths of Beauty and Revelations of Majesty
(fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl wa-fawātiḥ al-jalāl), whose sheer title alludes to such polarity:

… at times the attributes of beauty (ṣifāt al-jamāl) are revealed to him,
namely [the attributes of] grace (faḍl), mercy (raḥma), favour (luṭf) and
kindness (karam), and then he is immersed in intimacy (fa-yakūnu
mustaghriqan fi ‘l-uns); and at times the attributes of majesty (ṣifāt al-jalāl)
are revealed to him, namely [the attributes of] power (qudra), magnificence
(ʿaẓama), pride (kibriyāʾ), might (ʿizza), assault (saṭwa), and intensity of
fierceness (shiddat al-baṭsh); then he is immersed in awe (fi ‘l-hayba).48

In the Ṣūfī lore, one tradition reflects this close relationship with particular
intensity; it is recorded in canonical Ḥadith literature as a ḥadīth qudsī – an
extra-Qurʾānic divine saying – and is often labelled ḥadīth al-nawāfil, the tradi-
tion concerning supererogatory acts.49 This tradition suggests that the ‘friend’
(al-walī) draws close to God by adding onto the prescribed commandments
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   227
(farāʾiḍ) also voluntary acts of worship (nawāfil). When he acts in this way, God
loves him; when God loves him, He becomes the walī’s hearing (samʿ) by which
he hears, his sight (baṣar) by which he sees, his hand by which he seizes, and
his leg by which he walks. When he asks God for anything, God gives him,
when he seeks God’s refuge, God grants it to him.50 This tradition sets the
ground for explaining the extraordinary power that is granted to the awliyāʾ:
Their bodily organs become the vehicle through which God operates; hence,
whatever they do and however they act, it is a synergetic act of God and walī in
tandem. The locus classicus that is often brought to bear to convey such synergy
is Q. 8:17: “It was not you who threw, but God threw (mā ramayta idh ramayta
wa-lakinna Allāh ramā).”51 This synergy entails even the power of creation by
means of language, or rather by means of the walī’s tongue. I shall elaborate on
this theme in “Language and Power” (see below), referencing to a passage from
Ibn al-ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya.
Needless to say that al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī resorts to this tradition in many of
his works.52 In Sīrat al-awliyāʾ it appears following a description of the elevated
preparatory stages to which the walī is exposed at the high level in which he has
been placed in God’s proximity. Here is al-Tirmidhī’s detailed description:

The friend of God is one who stands firm in his rank ( yathbutu fī marta-
batihi), faithful to God in respect of [God’s] proviso as he had been faithful
to Him in respect of sincerity on the journey (bi-l-sidq fī sayrihi) and in the
place where he stopped due to being constraint53 (wa-bi-l-ṣidq fī maḥall
inqiṭāʿihi wa-iḍṭirārihi). He fulfills the prescribed commandments, observes
the legal limits and sticks to the rank [in which he had been placed]. Then
he is straightened, educated, cultivated, cleansed, purified, perfumed,
expanded, tutored, nourished, encouraged, habituated – by these ten [!] fea-
tures, his friendship with God becomes complete. Then he is transferred
from his rank to the Owner of the Kingdom (mālik al-mulk). There, a place
is arranged for him in front of Him and his discourse with Him becomes
face-to-face (wa-ṣāra najwāhu kifāḥan). … God takes him in his hold
(fa-ṣayyarahu fī qabḍatihi) and binds him to His [divine] intellect. He
makes him one of His trustees (wa-jaʿalahu amīnan min umanāʾihi). He
becomes as an entrusted one with no need for permission (wa-ṣāra kal-
mufawwaḍ ilayhi lā yaḥtāju ilā idhn); for wherever he goes to deal with any
of his affairs, he is in His hold – what fort is more fortified than His hold
(fa-ayyu ḥiṣn aḥṣan min qabḍatihi)? What watcher is greater than His great-
est intellect (wa-ayyu ḥāris ashaddu ḥirāsatan min ʿaqlihi ‘l-akbar)?54

In the section which follows this extraordinary description, al-Tirmidhī cites

ḥadīth al-nawāfil mentioned above, reportedly transmitted by Muḥammad on the
authority of the Angel Gabriel. The citations ends thus:

This is a worshipper whose intellect has been extinguished due to the super-
nal [divine] intellect (qad khamida ʿaqluhu li-l-ʿaql al-akbar); due to being
228   The spiritual hierarchy
held in His hold, his desirous movements have quieted down (sakanat
ḥarakātuhu ‘l-shahwāniyya). This, as has been transmitted, is in accordance
with what God said to Moses when Moses asked: “O, God, where shall I
search for You?” God said: “What dwelling can encompass Me? What
place can carry Me? If you wish to know where I am, I am in the heart of he
who renounces, abstains and is chaste (fa-innī fī qalb al-tārik al-wādiʿ
al-ʿafīf)”.55

In summing up this section, one should be reminded of another formidable

figure without whom the journey and activity of the al-awliyāʾ, and in particular
their sayyid and khātam, cannot be accomplished: al-Ḥaqq. By this term, often
identified as one of God’s divine names, I refer to the ‘power’ assigned by God
to educate the awliyāʾ, to watch over them and guard them against the inner and
outer temptations which might befall them in their elevated positions. This has
been elaborated in “The Name and the Named” (Chapter 9) in this monograph,
but I shall cite here again one of the relevant passages quoted there:

When the walī, in his journey to God, reaches the peak of sincerity (ṣidq),
of combatting his nafs (wa-mujāhadat al-nafs) and weaning her from bad
qualities, his ruses cease (inqaṭaʿat ḥīlatuhu) [i.e. he does not know what
else he can do to harness the self]. He remains in front of God awaiting His
mercy. When God elects him for wilāya (intakhabahu ‘llāhu taʿālā li-l-
wilāya), he appoints al-ḥaqq over him to guide him, purify him and lead
him to Him. From God’s nearness, the lights descend upon him, they purify
his nafs and extinguish her bad qualities – this is God’s education of him
(fa-dhāka tarbiyatu ‘llāh lahu).56

Power and language

The marvellous and miraculous deeds of the awliyāʾ are known as karāmāt (lit-
erally, graces) or khawāriq al-ʿādāt (literally, occurrences that surpass the
ordinary). They have been discussed and recorded in many chapters within clas-
sical Ṣūfī compilations57 and have been collected in a special literary genre
known as karāmāt al-awliyāʾ58 as well as in hagiographical works in praise of a
particular Ṣūfī master or group.59 Many miracles have been known to be per-
formed by using ‘God’s greatest name’ (ismu ‘llāh al-aʿẓam),60 or by special
invocations. The concept of the walī as mujāb al-daʿwa – he whose call [to God]
is answered – has been, from early on, part and parcel of Ṣūfī vocabulary and
one of the appellations by which the ‘friend’ was known.61 Even the feat of
reviving the dead is occasionally acknowledged and is amply recorded in Ṣūfī
manuals and in relevant studies thereof.62
For al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, the knowledge and power of the awliyāʾ are
intrinsically connected with the power that language holds and with their ability
to decode the mysteries of names and letters – this is yet another branch in the
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   229
wide-stretching tree of ʿilm al-awliyāʾ. In “The power of words”, I have dis-
cussed al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s association of wilāya with the potency of words.
Accordingly, it is the Friend of God who truly embraces the knowledge of the
power of words and how to use it effectively without losing sight of its ultimate
and single source. It is in accordance with this perspective and with
al-Tirmidhī’s mystical analysis of the intrinsic power of linguistic elements that
I have labelled his system ‘mystical linguistics’ (see “Words of power between
magic and mysticism”, Chapter 12 in this monograph).
Indeed, the awliyāʾ are believed to be endowed with special powers to per-
form extraordinary acts, among them the power to employ language effica-
ciously and creatively. That language is fundamentally divine and creative is
based on Qurʾānic verses, according to which creation comes into being by
means of the verbal command Kun! (Be!). God says: “Our command to a thing
when We will it, is to say to it kun and it is (Q. 16:40 (innamā qawlunā li-shayʾin
idhā aradnāhu an naqūla lahu kun fa-yakūnu).” With God’s permission, prophets,
too, may be endowed with the miraculous power to bestow life: Both Abraham
and Jesus were able to bring dead and inanimate birds into life, the one through
calling out (Q. 2:260) and the other through breathing (Q. 3:49, 5:110).63 Kun,
the existence-bestowing word, or certain words with comparable power, can be
employed also by the Friends.64 Ibn al-ʿArabī, for example, states that the recur-
ring Qurʾānic idiom ‘by My permission’ (bi-idhnī) is, in fact, comparable to the
idiom ‘by My command’ (bi-amrī) and hence also to the formula ‘by the name
of God (bismi ‘llāh)’; since God’s command, as we have seen, is to say to a
thing Be! (kun) and it is, then a command by God’s permission (bi-idhni ‘llāh),
when issued by a tongue activated by God – which, in fact, is God’s – has the
same efficacy as when spoken directly by God Himself. He writes:

“By My permission” means by My command; since I was your tongue and

your eyes, things may come into existence by you; [such things] are not
within the power of he through whose tongue I do not say [Be!]. In both
cases (i.e. whether it is directly through My saying or yours), the bringing
into existence belongs to Me. And bismi ‘llāh is the quintessence of kun.65

However, Ibn al-ʿArabī also states that the power of kun, or the fact that poten-
tially a walī is a creator (khallāq), should be approached with deference and
good manners (ḥusn al-adab) as befits conduct in front of God. He writes:66

Man, inherently has the power of kun, but outwardly he has got only the
passive faculty [of being the recipient of kun] … Among God’s men there
are those who hold on to [the power of kun) and there are those who, being
good-mannered towards God, [relinquish it] for they know that this [world]
is not its proper abode …67 This is the state of the well-mannered ones
(adīb, pl. udabāʾ) among God’s Knowers (al-ʿulamāʾ bi-‘llāh) who are con-
stantly present with Him (al-ḥāḍirīna maʿahu ʿalā ‘l-dawām). In this world,
therefore, the well-mannered [among God’s men] is a creator by means of
230   The spiritual hierarchy
his [religious] deed, not by means of kun (fal-adīb khallāq fī hādhihi ‘l-dār
bil-ʿamal lā bi-kun), but rather by means of bismi ‘llāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm
(= in the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate).68

At this conjunction, one should bring to bear al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s ‘spiritual

questionnaire’ again.69 The 147th question in it is this: “What is the interpreta-
tion of the formula bismi ‘llāh (mā taʾwīl qawlihi bismi ‘-llāh).”70 As we have
seen, Ibn al-ʿArabī took upon himself to compile answers to al-Tirmidhī’s
­questions, and his answer is this: “For the worshipper, with regard to bringing
something into existence, this [formula] is like kun for God; by its means certain
men bring forth what they will into existence”.71

Conclusion
Towards the end of this chapter, rather than go over themes that have already
been explicated or draw new insights, I have chosen to conclude with the words
of one of the eminent awliyāʾ of the sixth/twelfth century: Aḥmad b. ʿAlī
al-Rifāʿī (d. 578/1182) hailed from Umm ʿUbayda in southern Iraq. He is the
eponym of the Rifāʿīyya Brotherhood, one of the earliest in the history of the
Ṣūfī ṭuruq (sg. ṭarīqa, brotherhood).72 In the hagiographic literature, more than
for his extraordinary deeds (karāmāt), he is acclaimed for his exemplary good-
ness and love for all living beings. I suggest that the following passage from his
al-Burhān al-muʾayyad (The Supported Proof),73 brings together most of what
has been elaborated above; in particular, the understanding of the synergy
between human power and God’s ultimate authority, an understanding which
runs throughout the mystical sources brought to bear. Al-Rifāʿī writes:

Esteemed friends! When you seek help by means of God’s servants and
friends, do not regard this help and succor as coming from them, for this is
idolatry; rather, ask God [to grant you] what you need by His love for them;
[for the tradition says:]: “Many an unkempt, dust-covered, tattered men,
driven away at the doors – were they to adjure God, He would grant them
[their request]”.74 God gives them power to operate on existents (ṣarrafahum
Allāh fī ‘l-akwān), makes essences transform for them (wa-qallaba lahum
al-aʿyān), and, by His permission, makes them say to a thing Be! and it is
(wa-jaʿalahum yaqūlūna bi-idhnihi lil-shayʾ kun fa-yakūnu). ʿĪsā, peace be
with him, created a bird out of clay by God’s permission, revived the dead by
God’s permission. Our Prophet and beloved, the master of the masters of all
prophets, Muḥammad, may peace and the best of prayers be with him – a
trunk of a tree inclined towards him and inanimate objects greeted him; in
him, God brought together all the miracles (muʿjizāt) that He had dispersed
among the rest of the prophets and messengers. Then the secrets of his
miracle (muʿjiza) were carried on in the friends [of God] of his people; for
them they became graces (karāmāt) that are transient, while with him, may
peace be with him, [there remains] the abiding miracle (i.e. the Qurʾān).75
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   231
O, my child! O, my brother! If you say, “God, I ask you by Your Com-
passion” (allahumma asʾaluka bi-raḥmatika), it is as though you say, “I ask
you by the friendship of your servant (asʾaluka bi-wilāyat ʿabdika)”, Sheikh
Manṣūr [al-Rifāʿī’s maternal uncle from whom he had inherited the licence
to teach] or another of the friends; for friendship is a special privilege (li-
anna ‘l-wilāya ikhtiṣāṣ) – “by His compassion He privileges whom He
wishes” – ( yakhtaṣṣu bi-raḥmatihi man yashāʾu, Q. 2:105, 3:74); therefore,
beware of ascribing the power of the Compassionate to the one for whom
He has compassion: the deed and the power and the might are His, praise be
to Him; yet the connection (wasīla, literally: means, medium) is His com-
passion by which He has privileged His servant the walī. Therefore, when
in need, approach by God’s compassion, love and protection with which He
has privileged the choicest from among His servants, but affirm God’s
oneness in every deed, for He is [a] jealous [God].76

Notes
  1 From the vast secondary literature concerning the theme of the end of prophecy in
Islam, here are a few seminal studies: David S. Powers, “The Finality of Prophecy”,
in The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions, eds Adam J. Silverstein and
Guy G. Stroumsa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 254–71; Yohanan Fried-
mann, “Finality of Prophethood in Sunnī Islam”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 7 (1986): 177–215; Uri Rubin, “The Seal of the Prophets and the Finality of
Prophecy”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 164 (2014):
65–96; also J.E. Brockopp, Muhammad’s Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Com-
munities, 622–950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
  2 See Bernd Radtke, “The Concept of Wilāya in Early Sufism”, in The Heritage of
Sufism: Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi (700–1300), ed. Leonard
Lewisohn, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 483–96; Sara Sviri, “Mysticism in Early
Islam: the Pre-Compilatory Phase”, in Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, ed.
Herbert Berg (London: Routledge, 2018), 223–38.
  3 See, for example, al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 1 (1422/2001), 24; Ibn Abī Shayba (d.
235), Musnad, Vol. 1 (1997), 55; al-Tirmidhī, Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā, al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr,
Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1998), 346.
  4 From the vast academic literature on this subject, I shall confine myself to the following
references: M.A. Amir Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism: The Sources of Eso-
tericism in Islam, trans. David Streight (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1994), 76, n. 196; M.A.
Amir Moezzi, The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam: Beliefs and Practices (London: IB Tauris,
2011), 164, n. 61; Michael Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants of the Prophet: al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Ibn al-ʿArabī and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ on Ahl al-Bayt”, in L’Ésotérisme shi’ite,
ses racines et ses prolongements, ed. M.A. Amir-Moezzi (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016),
539–71, passim.
5 On this question, see, for example, al-Sarrāj’s apologetic yet assertive explication of
ūlī ‘l-ʿilm al-qāʾimīna bil-qisṭ (Q. 3:18) – concerning those who possess a special
knowledge of God and are thus the true “inheritors of the prophets”, see al-Sarrāj,
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, “Man ūlī ‘l-ʿilm al-qāʾimīna bil-qisṭ” (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub
al-Ḥadītha, 1960), 22.
6 Isrāfīl, together with Jibrīl, Mīkāʾīl and ʿAzrāʿīl, is one of the four archangels – the
one who will blow on the trumpet on the Day of Judgement. Thought-provoking is
the fact that Muḥammad does not feature here as a ‘model’ – is it because he is the
232   The spiritual hierarchy
transmitter of this tradition or because no one can follow in his footsteps bar the ‘Seal
of the awliyāʾ ’? It should be remembered that the notion of the ‘seal’ does not feature
in Abū Nuʿaym’s hagiography nor in most Ṣūfī compilations.
  7 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār
al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997), 39 (no. 16).
  8 Ibid., Vol. 1, 39–40 (no. 15).
  9 Trans. A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).
10 See Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya
al-kubrā, 1329/1911), 46.
11 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, Vol. 1, 35 (no. 4).
For an additional assemblage of traditions and explanations on wilāya, see
al-Qushayrī, Risāla (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2001), 292–5; note that
al-Qushayrī opens and ends this section with Q. 10:62, asserting that wilāya rests on a
state of no fear and no sadness but of acceptance (riḍā) of all life’s fluctuating
eventualities. One finds a wealth of traditions and anecdotes also in ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān
al-Jullabī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1976
[Leiden: Brill, 1911]), 210ff., in a lengthy section that he devotes to the Ḥakīmīs –
that is, the followers of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.
12 Al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, ed. Saʿīd Qaṭīfa, Vol. 3 (Cairo: al-Maktaba
al-tawfīqiyya, 1999), 300; see also Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 46.
13 Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 46; cf. Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler,
Tafsīr al-Tustarī (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011), 89–90.
14 On the objections to tenets and practices of the mystics of Islam, see the various
chapters in Frederik de Jong and Bernd Radtke, Islamic Mysticism Contested (Leiden:
Brill, 1999); see in particular Radtke, “Kritik am neo-Sufismus”, 163–73.
15 For a laudatory exposition of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s teaching of wilāya and on his
followers, the so-called “Ḥakīmīs”, see al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb. See Bernd
Radtke and John O’Kane (trans. and eds), The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic
Mysticism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (Richmond: Curzon Press 1996).
16 See in particular Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 and more; it would be too cumbersome
to make here specific references.
17 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §40, 20–9; also Radtke and O’Kane, The
Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 72–86.
18 See Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3 (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994), Ch. 73,
70–246; Sara Sviri, “Questions and Answers: A Literary Dialogue between al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī and Ibn al-ʿArabī”, in Studies in Honor of Shaul Shaked, eds Yohanan
Friedmann and Etan Kohlberg (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities, 2019), 141–57.
19 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §39, 20.
20 Ibid., §40, 20. On the spatial-cosmic aspect in more detail, see Sviri, “Questions and
Answers”.
21 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §41, 29.
22 More on this, see Qadam ṣidq, Shafāʿa, Khatm and the end of days below.
23 Ed. Cairo 1988, Vol. 1, 383–6.
24 Cf. Sahl al-Tustarī’s explanation – see [n. 13].
25 This is an abbreviated translation; for the full tradition, see ed. Cairo 1988, Vol. 1,
383–4; see also Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Kitāb al-Awliyāʾ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Kutub
al-Thaqafiya, 1413/1993), 27, no. 57.
26 See the enlightening article by J. Chabbi, “Abdāl”, Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. I,
2,173–4 and the references she mentions; Amikam Elad, “Community of Believers of
‘Holy Men’ and ‘Saints’ ”, Journal of Semitic Studies 47 (2002): 241–308, and the
ample references there; Rana Mikati, “On the Identity of the Syrian abdāl”, Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80 (2017): 21–43.
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   233
27 On this, see also Chapter 11 in this monograph. See also Paul B. Fenton, “The Hier-
archy of Saints in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism”, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn
ʿArabi Society 10 (1991): 12–34; also P.B. Fenton, “La hiérarchie des saints dans la
mystique juive et dans la mystique islamique”, in Alei Shefer: Studies in the Liter-
ature of Jewish Thought Presented to Rabbi Dr. Alexander Safran, ed. Moshe Hal-
lamish (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990), 49–73.
28 See, for example, Rudolf Mach, Der Zaddik in Talmud und Midrasch (Leiden:
Brill, 1957); see also Gershom Scholem, Elements of the Kabbalah and its Sym-
bolism (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1980) (in Hebrew), Ch. 7: “The Zaddik”,
213–58 (= Scholem’s Eranos lectures 1949–1969, trans. from German by Y. Ben-
Shlomo); also Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, trans. R.
Manheim (New York: Schocken Books, 1960), passim; Liebes, Studies in the
Zohar, trans. A. Schwartz, S. Nakache and P. Peli (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1993),
14ff. et passim.
29 See also Introduction.
30 See R.G. Khoury, Wahb b. Munabbih: teil 1: der Heidelberger Papyrus PSR Heid
Arab 23: leben und werk des Dichters (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972). Also
R.G. Khoury, “Wahb b. Munabbih”, Encyclopaedia of Islam2, 2012. On isrāʾīliyyāt,
see, for example, M.J. Kister, “Ḥaddithū ʿan banī isrāʾīl”, Israel Oriental Studies 2
(1972): 215–39; Haim Schwarzbaum, Biblical and Extra-Biblical Legends in Islamic
Folk-Literature (Walldorf-Hessen: Verlag für Orientkunde Vorndran, 1982); Roberto
Tottoli, “Origin and use of the term Isrāʾiliyyāt in Muslim literature”, Arabica 46
(1999): 193–210; Michael Pregill, “Isrāʾiliyyāt, Myth and Pseudepigraphy: Wahb b.
Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve”, Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008): 215–84.
31 On the literary genre of munājāt mūsā, see Joseph Sadan, “Ants, Miracles and Myth-
ological Monsters: A Literary Study of Ant Narratives between a Jāḥiẓian Atmo-
sphere and Munājāt Mūsā”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 30 (2005):
403–49, especially 422ff.
32 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. Ismāʿīl Ibrāhīm ʿAwaḍ (Cairo: Maktabat
al-imām al-Bukhārī, 2008), al-aṣl, 51, 211. Cf. “wa-ammā ‘l-muqarrab fa-ʿilmuhu …
ʿilm yuqāribu ‘l-muʿāyana aw ka-annahu yarāhu” – Nawādir al-uṣūl,, al-aṣl 190,
715. The ḥadīth “worship God as if you see him” (an taʿbuda Allāha ka-annaka
tarāhu) occurs in Ṣūfī compilations as defining the mystical state of murāqaba –
reciprocal observation of God and man; see, for example, al-Qushayrī, Risāla, Bāb
al-murāqaba, 78; also Isa Waley, “Contemplative Disciplines in Early Persian
Sufism”, in Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi (700–1300), Vol. 1 of
The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), 535ff.
33 On the titles divergence, see Chapter 12, n. 29; also Chapter 10 and other chapters in
this monograph.
34 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §160, 130; also Chapter 9 in this
monograph.
35 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. ʿAwaḍ, 2008, Ch. 43, 177.
36 Al-Kharrāz, Al-Ṭarīq ilā Allāh, ed. ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd (Cairo: Dār al-Maʻārif,
1980), 17ff.
37 Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, n.d.), 96–7 (Q. trans. Arberry, 82).
38 For the distinction between the ṣādiqūn, also named awliyāʾ al-ḥaqq, who are acti-
vated by ṣidq and by al-ḥaqq, and the awliyā’ Allāh who are the ultimate Friends of
God – see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §§3–32, 2–17; also Radtke and
O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 15–67 et passim; see
also Chapter 9 in this monograph.
39 Trans. Arberry, The Koran, 196.
234   The spiritual hierarchy
40 Al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Sayyid b. Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿImrān (Beirut: Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 2001), 294.
41 On the precedence of the prophets’ knowledge of God based on Q. 17:55, see
al-Kharrāz, Al-Ṭarīq ilā Allāh, 98: fa-lā yaqaʿu al-tafaḍḍul [i.e. tafaḍḍul al-anbiyāʾ]
ʿalā al-khalq illā bi-faḍl ʿilmihim bi-llāh taʿālā.
42 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §63, 43; see also §58, 39–40.
43 Ibid., 43–4.
44 For the laden and controversial term ahl baytihi wa-ālihi, see Ebstein, “Spiritual
Descendants”.
45 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §64, 44.
46 Ibid., §64, 44–5. On the elaboration of Shīʿī-like terminology in these passages, see
Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants”, 543–4; the association of al-Tirmidhī’s vision of
the khatm with Ibn al-ʿArabī’s are explored by Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants”; and
by Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood In the Doc-
trine of Ibn ʿArabi (Cambridge: Islamic Text Society, 1993). See also Bernd Radtke,
“A Forerunner of Ibn al-ʿArabî: Hakîm Tirmidhî on Sainthood”, Journal of the
Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society 8 (1989); comparative historical material is discussed
also in Geneviève Gobillot, “Le Mahdī, le Khatm al-awliyā’ et le qutb: évolution des
notions entre sunnisme et chiisme”, Mélanges de Science Religieus 59 (2002): 5–30.
For ḥujjat Allāh, see Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿazīm, 46: “I am the proof of
God for you [my disciples] in particular and for people in general (anā ḥujjat Allāh
ʿalaykum khāṣṣatan wa-ʿalā ‘l-nās ʿāmmatan).”
47 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §64, 44.
48 Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl, ed. and trans. F. Meier (Wiesbaden: Franz
Steiner Verlag, 1957), 46, §95–96; see also Chapter 7 in this monograph.
49 For a thorough survey and analysis of this tradition with ample references to primary
and secondary literatures, see Michael Ebstein, “The Organs of God: Ḥadīth
al-Nawāfil in Classical Islamic Mysticism”, Journal of the American Oriental Society
138 (2018): 271–89; see also Chapter 2 in this monograph.
50 Based on al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (kitāb al-riqāq) – see Ebstein, “The Organs of God”, 271.
51 See, for example, al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 1, 263.
52 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Adab al-nafs (1993), 43; al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. ʿAwaḍ, Ch. 164, 642 and Ch. 261, 1076; al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, al-Masāʾil al-maknūna, ed. M.I. Al-Juyūshī (Cairo: Dār al-turāth al-ʿarabī,
1980), 145.
53 For the wayfarer’s state of iḍṭirār (constraint, bewilderment), described as an impasse
and a turning point on the mystical journey, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat
al-awliyāʾ, §28, 15.
54 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §48, 33 and cf. Radtke and O’Kane, The
Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 91–2. For these preparatory qual-
ities, see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §41, 29, where, indeed, ten
qualities are enumerated (bar ghudhdhiya – nourished) and see comment (1) in
Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 92. The
ten qualities are again described in some detail in §51, 35–6. More on the walī’s
education and preparation, see “Al-Ḥaqq and the Friends of God”, Chapter 9 in this
monograph; also below, [near n. 54].
55 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §49, 34.
56 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, ed. al-Sāyiḥ wal-Jamīlī, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Dār
al-Rayyān lil-Turāth, 1988), 46.
57 See, for example, al-Kalābādhī, The Doctrine of the Ṣūfīs, trans. A.J. Arberry ­(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1935), Ch. 26 “On Their Doctrine of the Miracle of Saints”,
57–66; also “Discourse on the Affirmation of Miracles”, in al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb,
218–35; cf. B. Radtke, “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī on Miracles”, in Miracle et Karāma, ed.
Denise Aigle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 286–99.
 Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God   235
58 See, for example, Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ; al-Yāfiʿī, ʿAfīf al-Dīn,
Rawḍ al-rayāḥīn fī ḥikayāt al-ṣāliḥīn (Cairo: Sharikat Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʻat Muṣṭafā
al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1955); also the fairly late collection by al-Nabhānī (d. 1350/1931),
Jāmiʿ Karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, ed. S.M. Rabāb (Beirut: Dār al-maʿrifa, 1421/2001); the
most comprehensive study to date concerning the miracles of the Islamic Friends of
God is Richard Gramlich, Die Wunder der Freunde Gottes: Theologien Und Erschei-
nungsformen Des Islamischen Heiligenwunders (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1987);
also Muḥammad Badrān, Adabiyyāt al-karāma al-ṣūfiyya (Al Ain, UAE: Markaz
Zāyid lil-turāth wal-taʾrīkh, 2001) (in Arabic).
59 See, for example, al-Aflākī, Manāqib al-ʿārifīn (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basi-
mevi, 1959–1961); in French: Les saints des derviches tourneurs, trans. C. Huart
(Paris: Editions Orientales, 1978); in English: The Feats of the Knowers of God,
trans. John O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 2002); also, al-Rakhāwī, al-Anwār al-qudsiyya
min manāqib al-sāda al-naqshbandiyya (Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-saʿāda, 1344/1925).
60 The potency of the Great Name of God used by a walī is displayed, for example, in
the hagiographical accounts on Ibrāhim ibn Adham (second/eighth century), one of
the earliest protagonists of the Ṣūfī tradition – see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed.
J. Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 15; see also Gramlich, Die Wunder der
Freunde Gottes, 164–6; for a comparative study on ‘the great name of God’, see Y.
Zoran, “Magic, Theurgy and the Science of Letters in Islam and their parallels in
Jewish Literature”, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 18 (1996): 19–62 (in
Hebrew); see also Y. Zoran, “The Great Name of God in Islam, Its Characteristics
and their Parallels in Jewish Literature”, in ed. Joseph Tubi, Bein Ever le-Arav, Vol.
9, 2017, 70–95 (in Hebrew). See also Sara Sviri, “KUN – the Existence-Bestowing
Word in Islamic Mysticism: A Survey of Text in the Creative Power of Language”, in
The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign, eds Sergio La Porta
and David Shulman (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
61 See, for example, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, in the section on Maʿrūf al-Karkhī (d.
c.200/815), 9: “He was one of the great masters, one whose call [to God] is answered
and in whose tomb people look for healing.”
62 See, for example, Badrān, Adabiyyāt al-karāma al-ṣūfiyya, 150–3; also, Michel
Balivet, “Miracles christiques et islamization en chrétienté seldjoukides et ottomane
entre le XIe et le XVe siècle”, in Miracle et Karāma, ed. Denise Aigle (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2000), 403.
63 For the Qurʾānic foundation of the discourse on miracles, see Denise Gril, “Les fond-
ements scripturaires du miracles en islam”, in Miracle et Karāma, ed. Denise Aigle
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 237–49; for early discussions on prophetic and saintly
miracles, see Bernd Radtke, “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī on Miracles”, 286–99.
64 See, in detail, Sviri, “KUN – the Existence-Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism”.
65 See Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 4, Ch. 198, 55: bi-idhnī ay bi-amrī
lammā kuntu lisānaka wa-baṣaraka takawwanat ʿanka al-ashyāʾ allatī laysat
bi-maqdūra li-man lā aqūlu ʿalā lisānihi fa-l-takwīn fī al-ḥālayn lī fa-bi-’smi ’llāh
ʿayn kun.
66 See Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Ch. 353.
67 An example of an exceptional man who, according to Ibn al-ʿArabī, had relinquished
the power to operate on existents (taṣarruf), is Abū al-Suʿūd ibn al-Shibl, a disciple
of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (Baghdad, sixth/twelfth century) – see, for example, Ibn
al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 1, Ch. 25, 452; see also Ibn al-ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ
al-ḥikam, ed. Abū ‘l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʻArabī, 1966), 128–9 (the
Chapter on Lot).
68 See Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 5, 459–60; For a discussion on the
comparability of bismi ‘llāh and kun, see [n. 60]).
69 See more, [n. 15]; also Sviri, “Questions and Answers”, 141–57.
70 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, §40, 28.
236   The spiritual hierarchy
71 Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3, Ch. 73, 222.
72 On Shaykh Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī and the Rifāʿīyya Ṣūfī brotherhood, see J.S. Trimingham,
The Ṣūfī Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 37–40 et passim; see also
Sviri, “KUN – the Existence-Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism”, Appendix.
73 Aḥmad ibn ʻAlī Rifāʻī, Al-Burhān Al-Muʼayyad, eds ʻAbd al-Ghanī Nikahʹmī and
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʻAṭāʼ Allāh (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Nafīs, 1408).
74 “rubba ashʿath aghbar dhī ṭimrayn madfūʿ al-abwāb law aqsama ʿalā Allāh la-abar-
rahu” – References to authoritative Ḥadīth collections were probably inserted by the
editor/s or copyist/s; the image refers to the ‘hidden’ walī, one that does not have the
appearance of a distinguished member of society yet holds the power the God’s near-
ness vouchsafes on him.
75 The Qurʾān is considered the most marvellous and inimitable of all the miracles
which were bestowed on the prophets; therefore, with regard to Muḥammad, al-Rifāʿī
reverts to a ‘miracle’ (muʿjiza) in the singular; for him, the power of this unique
miracle, the Qurʾān, God’s word, runs through the awliyāʾ and bestows on them, too,
the power to commit extraordinary deeds, karāmāt.
76 Al-Rifāʻī, Al-Burhān al-Muʼayyad, 124–6.
11 Myrtle and holy men
Echoes of ancient traditions in a
woman’s dream1

Introduction: influences and echoes

Transactions of ideas and images from one group or corpus to another, conven-
tionally referred to as ‘influences’, have been explored on the basis of a scrupulous
philological and historical methodology. This methodology requires a profi-
ciency in the languages involved, skills in comparative philology, a familiarity
with the literary corpora extant at particular times and places, and an acquaint-
ance with the historical contexts which facilitated such transactions. In an event
of ‘influence’, two agents are at play: the influencing one and the recipient of
influence. On the part of the recipient, influence and its reception call for a
degree of awareness, even choice, or, conversely, and paradoxically, for outright
denial and rejection. In the study of Early Islam, a case in point is the disparate
views within it as regards the question of influences from Jewish or Christian
sources. An example can be adduced from a well-known enquiry into the
different interpretations given by Muslim authors to an early ḥadīth: “ḥaddithū
ʿan banī isrāʾīl walā ḥaraja” (“Transmit in the name of the Children of Israel
for there is no blame in it”).2 Whatever interpretation is brought to bear by way
of supporting or rejecting the implication of this tradition, its bearers show
awareness of the cultural issue of a potential, or even actual, influence. Such
awareness is in itself a cultural phenomenon, one which keeps producing heated
debates, kindling positive or negative ‘attitudes’. But there are also other, less
clear-cut, less overt, instances of cultural transactions. At times, transactions of
cultural patterns from old into new historical spheres occur diffusely and are less
susceptible to a research of a clear one-to-one relationship. These transactions
may originate in multiple sources, flow under-currently and surface up either by
means of osmosis or as an inertial continuity.
Indeed, observing cultural processes that took place in Early Islam reveal that
the highly developed and rich traditions of Late Antiquity, be they Christian,
Jewish, Gnostic, Pagan, Zoroastrian or even Indian, traditions which had been
active and present for centuries in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Iran
and elsewhere, could not and did not disappear overnight with the Muslim con-
quests and settlement; rather, Muslims in these areas, be they converts or inborn,
either adopted the cultural models of these ancient traditions or, simply, carried
238   The spiritual hierarchy
them on. An Islamic clean break from all cultural and religious patterns that had
preceded it is hard to conceive.3
In describing occurrences deriving from cultural continuities, be they
osmotic or inertial, the use of ‘influence’ is hardly suitable; what is at play here
is better designated as ‘echoes’, ‘traces’ or ‘residues’.4 Whereas ‘influence’
usually denotes borrowings or adaptations from a well-defined source or
corpus, the terms ‘residues’ or ‘echoes’ allude to cultural patterns which had
been widely diffused among a variety of religious communities, so much so that
a common pool, a kind of cultural ‘lingua franca’, had been at work, defying
scholarly attempt at demonstrating the precise origins of such patterns. Thus,
literary ­evidence shows, and sound deliberation accepts, that ideas, concepts
and images prevalent in cultures which had become subservient and over-
powered are retained by individuals and communities long after their time-
marked downfall, and that these ideas, concepts and images take a long time to
peter out and ­disappear altogether. Absorbed into the new culture, they may
take on new forms and expressions commensurate with the values of their new
denominational milieu, but rather than disappear, they subsist and surface up
wherever they find an outlet. Such an outlet may be found in areas which lie
outside of the consensual mainstream cultural bearers of denominational tenets –
for example, in rare ­Ego-documents such as autobiographies, correspondences
and diaries.
Rare private materials can be found in writings from the formative period of
Islamic mysticism; writings dated to the mid-second/eighth up to the late third/
ninth century, which predate the consolidation of what became known as Ṣūfism
(taṣawwuf) and the redaction of classical Ṣūfī compilations. The academic
research of pre-Islamic echoes in mystical literature has been hesitant and tent-
ative. The exploration of the early pre-compilation mystical literature as a wit-
ness of residues of pre-Islamic themes is, as yet, an almost uncharted field. This
may be so because studying the stage at which nascent Islam was absorbing and
assimilating, rather than transmitting, may be tangential to current trends of
viewing Islam as a self-contained religious and cultural entity. Nevertheless, an
attempt to search for the cultural and religious developments which contributed
to the make-up of Islamic spirituality in its formative period cannot be satis-
factory without following the traces of pre-Islamic themes and without attentive-
ness to their long lasting ‘echoes’ in Islamic literature.
In tracing such residues in Early Islam, I propose to point out the continuous
presence of late antique motifs in the Islamic sphere. The following enquiry can
be viewed as a case in point for such a proposition. In closer resolution and more
specifically, it aims to expose some of the pre-Islamic cultural strata which had
contributed to the build-up of the notions of ‘holy man’ and ‘spiritual hierarchy’
in Early Islam, and especially within its mystical tradition. My enquiry revolves
around the recurring image of the ‘myrtle’ as a symbol of the ‘holy man’ in
numerous sources. The starting point of my enquiry is a dream of an unnamed
but identifiable ninth-century Muslim woman from Transoxiana, in which the
‘myrtle’ plays an important symbolic (and perhaps also ritualistic) role.
 Myrtle and holy men   239
The chapter is divided into five sections: the dream; the myrtle as symbol of
the ‘righteous’ (i.e. the ‘holy man’); the widespread idea that the world cannot
exist without the righteous; notions of the inner hierarchy within the realm of the
righteous; and conclusions, in which the focus is on the centrality of the figure
of the holy man in late antique traditions.

Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s dream

The story of this unnamed woman, whom I shall nevertheless name Umm ʿAbd
Allāh, takes place in the middle of the third/ninth century at the town of
­Tirmidh5 in Central Asia. Umm ʿAbd Allāh is a fictitious name but not a ficti-
tious character; I have borrowed her kunya (nickname) from her husband’s. An
influential mystic and prolific author, who, at this early period of Islamic mysti-
cism, laid down the typology of ‘the Friends of God’ (al-awliyāʾ) and their spe-
cial relationship with God (wilāya),6 Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī left
a short autobiographical account, the first of its kind in the history of Islamic
literature.7 Not only is it the first extant text in the autobiographical genre in
Arabic, it is also unique as a document that describes at first hand mystical
experiences and dreams. The dreams and experiences which he recorded had
been experienced and dreamed by himself as well as by his wife, whose name he
does not disclose in spite of the loving manner in which he relates to her. Abū
ʿAbd Allāh’s short and highly personal journal allows us to observe two rather
unusual literary phenomena: first, the interlacing of oral with written materials;
and, second, the occasional inclusion of Persian within the Arabic text. In the
recording of the wife’s dreams and experiences, as well as in the general style of
this autobiographical text, the written reports retain the features of a free-flowing
oral discourse between husband and wife. Moreover, it is probable that their
conversations were conducted in Persian, the family’s daily spoken language.
This is clearly reflected in the words, phrases and sentences spoken by the wife
in Persian and scattered by the husband within his Arabic text. It has already
been observed that this is a rare example of a third/ninth-century use of Persian
in a written form.8 These features highlight the authentic and barely redacted
character of the text at hand.
In one of the dreams that Umm ʿAbd Allāh dreams and that Abū ʿAbd Allāh
records, the central image is of an unknown messenger – perhaps an angel –
holding two kinds of plants: in his left hand he holds sweet basil branches
(rayāḥīn), which, at the time of the dream, seem to be withered; in his right hand
he holds green myrtle twigs (ās akhḍar raṭb). The dream messenger conveys to
the dreamer a message in which the two kinds of plants, especially the myrtle,
function as key symbols. Umm ʿAbd Allāh, on her part, delivers the dream to
her husband, as it is clear to her, and eventually to him too, that the message is
directed especially to him and that it is part of the spiritual training to which
divine wisdom has ordained him.9
This is not the first scholarly exposure of this dream and its unique autobio-
graphical source.10 In previous exposures, however (including my own),11 the
240   The spiritual hierarchy
pre-Islamic traces scattered in it, which I hope to bring out in the following section,
have not been highlighted.12 First, here is the dream; for the sake of a smooth
reading of the dream narrative I have placed most of the comparative material in
the footnotes:

I saw a big pool (ḥawḍ) in a place unknown to me. The water in the pool
was as pure as spring water. On the surface of the water bunches of grapes
appeared, all white. I and my two sisters were sitting by the pool. We were
plucking grapes from these bunches and eating them while our legs were
dangling down the pool, laid upon the surface of the water; not immersed,
only touching the water.
I said to my youngest sister: “Here we are, as you see, eating from these
grapes – but who has given them to us?” Suddenly, a man came towards us,
curly-haired, on his head a white turban, his hair loose behind the turban,
wearing white clothes.13
He said to me: “Who has a pool such as this and grapes such as these?”14
He then took me by the hand, raised me and said to me at a distance from
my sisters: “Tell Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī to read the verse, ‘We shall set up just
scales (al-mawāzīn) on the day of resurrection …’ to its end.15 On these
scales neither flour nor bread is weighed but the speech of this is weighed” –
pointing to his tongue; “and on them are weighed these and these” – point-
ing to his hands and legs. “Do you not know that excess of speech is as
intoxicating as the drinking of wine?”16
I said, “Would you, please, tell me who you are?”
He said: “I am one of the angels; we roam the earth and our abode is in
Jerusalem.”17
Then I saw in his right hand [a bunch] of young green myrtle [twigs] (ās
akhḍar raṭb)18 and in his other hand19 branches of sweet basil (rayāḥīn).20
While he was talking to me, he was holding them in his hands.
Then he said: “We roam the earth and we call on the worshippers
(al-ʿubbād).21 We place these basil twigs on the hearts of the worshippers so
that by them they may carry out acts of worship. And these myrtle twigs we
place upon the hearts of the eminently just ones (al-ṣiddīqūn) and the ones
who possess certitude (al-mūqinūn) so that by them they may know what
sincerity is (ṣidq).22 These basil twigs in summer look like this, but the
myrtle never changes, neither in summer nor in winter.23 Tell Muḥammad
ibn ʿAlī: Don’t you wish that these two will be yours?” and he pointed to
the myrtle and to the herbs. Then he said: “God can lift the piety (taqwā) of
the God-fearing to such a degree that they need not be fearful. Yet He com-
manded them to be fearful so that they may know it …”24
Then he plucked some of the myrtle [twigs] from the bunch which he was
holding and handed them to me …
He said: “Take this, and as for these that I hold in my hands, I myself
shall take them to him. This is between the two of you; both of you are
together at the same place …” Then he said, “May God bestow on you,
 Myrtle and holy men   241
O sisters, a garden (rawḍa) – not because of your fasts and prayers but
because of the goodness of your hearts and because you love the good and
do not wish evil …”25
I said to him, “Why don’t you say this in front of my sisters?”
He said, “They are not like you and they are not your equal.”
Then he said, “Peace be with you” and went away. I woke up.

One can approach this captivating dream from different angles. As we read it, it
becomes obvious that it contains eschatological images which could have been
dwelled on at length in the pursuit of pre-Islamic materials and sources. Indeed,
that pre-Islamic eschatological traditions, especially Zoroastrian, nourished
Early Islam is a subject widely studied and discussed and references to some of
the pertinent studies are not irrelevant for the concern of this chapter.26 From a
literary perspective, these eschatological allusions – the pool, the pure water, the
white grapes, the scales, the white-haired white-clad figure – help to create the
other-worldly tenor of the dream narrative. But my concern is neither with
eschatology as such nor with literary topoi but with the comparative dimension
of two aspects of the dream: first, the iconic significance of the myrtle and,
second, the teaching concerning the spiritual hierarchy of the awliyāʾ, the
Friends of God, the holy men of Islam.

The myrtle
A comparative study of the function and significance of the myrtle in the literature
of Antiquity and Late Antiquity yields a wealth of information. The peoples of
Antiquity and the religious groups of Late Antiquity held the myrtle in great
esteem and ascribed to it therapeutic, ritualistic and magical qualities.27 Ās, The
Arabic word for myrtle which our author uses, is a loanword from the Aramaic.
In Aramaic dialects, āsā, myrtle,28 is apparently a loanword from the Akkadian
asum.29 Asum and āsā, according to some, seem to share the root a-s-y with
words denoting healing, medicine, physician etc.30 Bearing in mind the thera-
peutic qualities of the myrtle, these two distinct lexemes could have been easily
associated semantically. Akkadian sources attest to the use of the myrtle as an
aromatic, as an ingredient in perfume for ritual offerings and in medical as well
as magical use since the dawn of civilization.31 Arabic, too, has assimilated this
cultural loanword and the medical knowledge associated with it, probably via
Aramaic.32 Some classical Arabic dictionaries show awareness of the foreign
origin of this word, yet approve of its employment in eloquent poetry. These
dictionaries (which, incidentally, derive ās from the root ’-w-s) mention its
sweet scent and its perennial evergreenness.33 In Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s dream the
myrtle’s evergreenness is presented as an essential symbolic feature. Indeed, it
represents an abiding vitality which belongs to a special type of human beings,
those who are divinely endowed, the holy men. Such presentation of the myrtle
can be found in testimonies from various religious and cultural sources. For
example, the evergreen myrtle comes up in an intricate alchemical treatise
242   The spiritual hierarchy
ascribed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, an enigmatic personality supposedly of the second/
eighth century, under whose name a huge alchemical corpus in Arabic is in
existence.34 The treatise in question is titled Kitāb al-ziʾbaq al-gharbī, The Occi-
dental Mercury. Its style is vague and couched with enigmas (or perhaps with
errors of scribes and redactors?). But the role of the myrtle in an alchemical dis-
tillation process comes through clearly enough. The myrtle’s evergreenness,
which is unaffected by temporal changes of cold or warm, symbolizes, esoteri-
cally, the ever-present purifying and transformative element sought after by
alchemists and philosophers.35 What is of particular interest is the author’s stipu-
lation that his description should not be taken at face value; the secret meaning
of the evergreen myrtle should be explored along with the code names that it had
been given protectively by legendary sages associated with the alchemical art:
“the golden ladders” (salālīm al-dhahab) by Maria the Egyptian and “the green
bird” (al-ṭāʾir al-akhḍar) by Socrates [!] (or should one read buqrāṭ = Hypo-
crates? with thanks to GRG.)36 Another example comes from a rather late Judaic
Midrash, Panim aḥerim, dated either to the early (eighth century) or the late
(twelfth–thirteenth century) Middle Ages. We find in it the following statement:
“As the myrtle withers neither in summer nor in winter, so also the righteous
withers neither in this world nor in the world-to-come.”37
Symbolic meanings are often conveyed in formal, ritualistic acts. The dream
we are studying evokes such acts: sitting at a source of fresh pure water, the
meeting with an unknown messenger at the source of water, the white clothes
and headgear the messenger is wearing, and in particular his holding of the two
kinds of plants in his hands. It is worth repeating here the phrasing of the
dreamer:

Then I saw in his right hand [a bunch] of young green myrtle [twigs] (ās
akhḍar raṭb) and in his other hand branches of sweet basil (rayāḥīn). While
he was talking to me, he was holding them in his hands.

That the myrtle should be held in the right hand is ritualistically significant. In
Judaism, one of the central rituals of the feast of Tabernacle includes holding up
the ‘four species’ – that is, citron, myrtle, palm and willow.38 According to tradi-
tion, every day during the celebration of the feast the ‘four species’ are held and
raised up: in the right hand one should hold, bundled together in a very specific
way, the myrtle twigs, the palm branch and the willow twigs, and in the left
hand the citron on its own.39 According to Midrash Tehillim, another medieval
Midrashic compilation, the reason for this ritual is to be sought in Ps. 17:11:
“Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy
right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Since the triple bundle which
includes the myrtle symbolizes the endless pleasures at God’s right hand, it is in
this hand that it should ritually be held.40 Interesting in this context is a Talmudic
anecdote, which, in a somewhat idiosyncratic ritual, connects the myrtle with
Shabbath and possibly with the efficacious aspect of holding up the myrtle: on
the eve of Shabbath, R. Shimon bar-Yoḥai and his son saw an old man running.
 Myrtle and holy men   243
He was holding two bunches of myrtle twigs in his hands. When they asked him
for what these were, he answered: “One is for ‘Remember!’ (zakhōr – Ex. 20:8),
the other for ‘Observe!’ ” (shamōr – Deut. 5:12).41
Another ritualistic example comes from a time and milieu closer to the
dreamer at the core of our inquiry: It is in the context of traditions concerning
Muḥammad ibn Nuṣayr, the third/ninth-century eponymous founder of the
Nuṣayriyya (one of the extremist sects, ghulāt, that branched off from the Shīʿa).
In the Nuṣayri tradition, Ibn Nuṣayr is considered the bāb (literally, the Gate, the
title of the Imām’s mouthpiece who acts as intermediary between the Imām and
his followers) of the eleventh Shīʿī Imām, Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/874). It is
related that when a delegation of Persian horsemen paid a visit to the Imām,
“they found him dressed all in green, surrounded by green mats and pillows, and
next to him Ibn Nuṣayr, also clad in green and holding a branch of myrtle (ās) in
his hand.”42 Although the tradition does not specify in which hand the myrtle
was held, it is obvious that it was the right hand, since the left hand is considered
ill-omened and foreboding and is at best referred to, euphemistically, “the other
hand” – as in the dream narrative we are discussing (see “Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s
dream” above). The image of an Imām accompanied by his bāb (in the Nuṣayri
tradition both figures were believed to be divinely inspired and endowed with
super-human qualities; furthermore, the Imām was considered as God incar-
nate), the latter holding myrtle in his hand and both seated in the centre of a
formal audition in which a delegation of horsemen present themselves to offer
their loyalty and submission to both, such an image is reminiscent of pre-Islamic
Near-Eastern traditions with similar iconic and ritualistic connotations. The most
striking similarity is with the Mandaean tradition.
In spite of well-known difficulties in charting the history and in dating the
origin of the Mandaean tradition in any precision, the following statement
made by one of the leading experts seems to be generally accepted: “Modern
investigations … have shown that the [Mandaean] liturgical and poetic writ-
ings must have existed already in the 3rd century c.e.”.43 Also agreed upon is
the association of the Mandaean religion with late antique Gnosticism. This,
for one thing, is reflected in the (Aramaic) word mandaʿ, gnosis (knowledge),
from which their designation derives. In fact, the Mandaean religion of today
is said to be the only living remnant of the Gnostic religions of Late Antiq-
uity.44 Some of the ritual images in the dream we are contemplating can be
found also in the Mandaean tradition and are central to it: water and the purifi-
cation ritual of baptism in water (maṣbūta); the presence and help of divine
messengers (ʿuthria);45 the right hand significance, for example in the ‘right
hand clasping’ ceremony (qushṭa);46 the white dress and turban worn by
priests and laity (rāsta); and, lastly, the evergreen, fresh and fine-smelling
myrtle. In the Mandaean liturgy the myrtle appears to be much more than yet
another ingredient in triumph wreaths, in therapeutic recipes or in magical
­formulae. Myrtle is a cardinal ritualistic object endowed with sanctity and
symbolism. Here, for example, are some lines from a hymn which is recited
during one of the main Mandaean ceremonies, the Zidqa brīkha (‘the Blessed
244   The spiritual hierarchy
offering’), at which the high priest distributes myrtle twigs to the participants
and they in turn insert them into their turbans:47

In the Name of the Great Life!48

Myrtle, Myrtle! The King49 took it,
The King was surrounded by the perfumed myrtle
And he blessed Hibil-Ziwa50 and said to him:
Blessed are thou, our father Hibil-Ziwa
Like the myrtle that is in thy right hand.51
And may thy root flourish
Like the root of the fresh myrtle
And thou shalt have glory and honour
Like the Water of Life.52

Many more passages of this ilk could be cited to impress upon us the centrality
of the myrtle in the Mandaean rites. Lady E.S. Drower, an early twentieth-­
century anthropologist, is probably the first modern scholar to have assiduously
observed, collected and recorded the rites and liturgy of the modern Mandaeans,
whom she had met in the marshes of south Iraq and Iran. In her works Drower
has given vivid descriptions of the myrtle wreath (klīla) which is present in
many acts of worship and of other ceremonies and hymns in which the myrtle
plays an important religious role.53 Of particular interest is the drabsha/drafsha,
the ritual banner present at almost every Mandaean ceremony, into which fresh
myrtle sprigs are woven.54 As is clear from the liturgy, including the hymn cited
above, the sacral objects involved in these ceremonies are believed to represent
their spiritual counterparts in the Realm of Light and Life.55 This brings to mind
the symbolic connotations of the evergreen myrtle in the alchemical art adopted
by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān and others in Early Islam, connotations that were kept con-
cealed from lay people but were considered attainable, fathomed and acted upon
by an elect few.

Myrtle as a symbol of the holy man

In the pursuit of myrtle imagery in the context of ‘holiness’, I arrive at a biblical
passage whose similarity to Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s dream is nothing but striking.
The passage in question is the first night vision of the prophet Zechariah, seen in
the second year of the reign of Darius. Several images in the night vision seem
relevant for our discussion, but what is of particular relevance are the rabbinic
commentaries thereof. Zechariah, 1:8–11 reads as follows:

I saw by night, and behold, a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood
among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him there were
red horses, speckled, and white. Then said I, O, my Lord, what are these?
And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will show thee what these
be. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said,
 Myrtle and holy men   245
These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the
earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle
trees and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all
the earth sitteth still and is at rest.

Two chords in this night vision reverberate in Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s dream: first,
the myrtle (in the biblical Hebrew hadassīm, ‘myrtle’ in the plural, with no
apparent suggestion of ‘trees’ as in the English translation; note, however, the
Aramaic translation, below, [n. 58]) and, second, the expression to walk to and
fro through the earth, an expression which marks the horses’ function and iden-
tity in the vision. The nexus of these two images in both vision and dream is
striking; it allows us to characterize both the ‘horses’ and the figure in the dream
as belonging to a category of messengers whose business is to walk about (or
roam), investigate, and then act upon their finds: in the vision this entails report-
ing to a superior being and in the dream signaling out the elect from ordinary
worshippers – this too, no doubt, by divine order (see “Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s
dream” section above). When we add to this nexus the puzzled questions with
which both the prophet Zechariah (‘what are these?’) and Umm ʿAbd Allāh
(‘would you, please, tell me who you are?’) address their well-informed inter-
locutors, we can identify here a literary topos in a very particular context. The
context in both narratives is an event which brings together the transcendent and
the worldly realms by means of messengers. These events are visually con-
structed as meetings between an innocent observer and an all-knowing interlocu-
tor. In both meetings, the myrtle plays a pivotal though enigmatic role which
begs interpretation. In Umm ʿAbd Allāh’s dream, the interpretation is given to
her by the angelic figure: “And these myrtle twigs we place upon the hearts of
the eminently just ones (al-ṣiddīqūn) and the ones who possess certitude
(al-mūqinūn) so that by them they may know what sincerity (ṣidq) is.” For the
interpretation of the myrtle in Zechariah’s vision we have to look for illumina-
tion outside of the biblical text. We find it, for example, in the Babylonian
Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 93a, in the context of a discussion concerning the
ranks of the righteous (zaddīqīm).56 The Talmudic discussion starts with the
statement, “The righteous are greater than the ministering angels”,57 which is
supported by an allusion to Ḥananiah, Mishaʾel and ʿAzariah, the three righteous
youths who were thrown into the furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar but came out
unscathed (Daniel 3:24–26). When God remembers His righteous, the sages sug-
gest, He is appeased and puts off His plan to destroy the whole world.58 The
Rabbinic discussion that follows, with the righteous in mind, sparks off R.
Yoḥanan, a third-century ce Palestinian Amora (Talmudic scholar),59 to engage
in a lengthy discourse, in which he offers a commentary on Zechariah’s vision:
“A man riding upon a red horse” he interprets as “the Holy one blessed be He”,
and “He stood among the myrtle trees that were in the deep” – these, he says, are
“the righteous that were in Babylon”, namely, Ḥananiah, Mishaʾel and ʿAzariah,
thanks to whom the world still exists; for, he adds emphatically, “the myrtle
refers to nothing but the righteous (we-ʾein hadassīm ʾella zaddiqīm)”. This
246   The spiritual hierarchy
Rabbinic tradition according to which the myrtle represents the righteous is
­witnessed by the fourth–fifth-century ce Church Father St. Jerome who, in his
commentary to Zechariah, which is assumed to reflect the Aramaic Targum,
writes: “The Hebrews … wish the myrtles to be understood as the prophets and
holy ones who were dwelling in the midst of the captive people and were in the
deep …”60 Indeed, the ‘addendum’ (tosefta) to the Aramaic Targum of Zechariah
1:8 has this in brackets: “I had a vision during the night. Behold, I saw a man
mounted on a red horse, and he was stationed among the myrtle trees of Babylon
<among the righteous who were in the Diaspora in Babylon>”.61
In the same vein, the Talmudic lore connects this imagery of the myrtle
(hadas) also with Esther, whose Hebrew name Hadassah is derived from hadas,
myrtle. This is brought to bear by R. Yoḥanan in the passage referred to above
(from San. 93a), when he illustrates his exegesis of Zechariah’s vision with a
reference to the Book of Esther 2:7: “And he brought up Hadassah, that is,
Esther …” R. Yoḥanan’s elliptic reference to Esther-Hadassah in the context of
the myrtle as the righteous is clarified by BT Tractate Megillah 13:1: “R. Meir
says: Her name is Esther, so why is she called Hadassah? [She is thus called]
after the righteous who were named hadassīm (myrtle), as it is said [in Zech.
1:8]: ‘And He stood among the hadassīm’.”62
In the Rabbinic lore, Zechariah’s prophetic night vision of a man standing
among the myrtle [trees] is thus understood as an image of God standing among
His righteous. Visually, this image is evocative of the ‘King’ standing among his
messengers (ʿuthria) in the Mandaean ceremony and hymn cited above, where,
as will be remembered, the ‘King’ distributes to the lofty assembly fresh myrtle.
It can also be associated with the Nuṣayri image cited above describing the
Imām sitting with his bāb among his loyal followers. That the ‘righteous’ stands
(or sits) in the company of divine messengers, or angels, should also be borne in
mind, especially when in the biblical vision the prophet’s interlocutor is identi-
fied as “the angel (or messenger) of God” (malʾakh Adonai) and when we
remember that in the Talmudic exegesis, ‘the righteous’ come up in discussing
zaddīkim versus ‘angels’. Culturally and historically, then, biblical, Rabbinic,
and Islamic, and to some extent also Christian references, supported by the Man-
daean material, imply a clear and continuous association of the myrtle with the
‘righteous’ – this distinguished category of human beings which, from a com-
parative perspective, we may name also ‘holy men’ or ‘saints’ – as a widespread
late antique cultural feature.
The criss-crossing net of traditions from pre-Islamic Late Antiquity in which
the myrtle is celebrated and in whose cults the myrtle is central is indeed wide.
But my intention is focused not on the phenomenon of the myrtle at large but on
the myrtle as symbol of the ‘holy man’ within pre-Islamic traditions. Before we
continue, a point from the perspective of ‘influence’ should be reiterated: clearly,
it would be difficult to pin down one corpus as the prime source of influence for
the myrtle symbolism and function. As regards Early Islam in particular, it
would be difficult, if not impossible, to suggest from where the woman’s dream
images sprang forth: were they echoes of Zoroastrian, Mandaean, or perhaps
 Myrtle and holy men   247
Jewish traditions? At the same time, I am not inclined to relegate this symbolism
to the field of ‘Jungian’ archetypes. This is not only an archetype rooted in a uni-
versal collective dimension. It carries echoes of traditions deeply embedded in
Near-Eastern Antiquity and Late Antiquity; its presence has subsisted well into
the Islamic period, surfacing into the consciousness, or the unconscious, of a
third/ninth-century woman from a region that for many centuries had been
known as a place where, culturally and religiously, a variety of traditions and
systems converged. That this woman should be the visionary wife of the sage
who, during the formative period of Islamic mysticism, laid down a special
typology of ‘the holy man’ (walī), and that this typology should lie at the
foundation of the teaching of wilāya in Islamic mysticism at large, make this
inquiry significant from comparative and historical perspectives rather than from
phenomenological or archetypal perspectives alone. What surfaced into the
dreamer’s experience were images which have been implanted there, con-
sciously or unconsciously, through multi-layered cultural contacts over a long
period of time. By this observation, I do not mean to reduce the numinous
quality of the dream. It is my understanding that, on the personal level, this and
the rest of the dreams in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s autobiography were understood
by both himself and his wife as ‘teaching dreams’, messages delivered by a tran-
scendent messenger from a divine sphere, perhaps in lieu of a living, flesh and
blood teacher that Abū ʿAbd Allāh never had.63 It was clear to both husband and
wife that the purpose of these messages was to announce that they were among
the chosen ones, the elect, those included in the category of awliyāʾ Allāh.

The world cannot exist without the righteous

The Talmudic commentary identifying Zechariah’s myrtle [trees] with the right-
eous (zaddiqīm) sprang from R. Yoḥanan’s recall of the three righteous youths
who were in the furnace in Babylon under the protection of God and God’s
angel. But the Amora’s interpretative association went further: the ‘man’ in the
night vision, he says, represents God, and the ‘red horse’ upon which He was
riding represents God’s wish to turn the whole world to blood. Then, when God
encounters His three righteous youths, He is appeased and changes His mind;
consequently, the world is not destroyed. The doctrine, according to which the
subsistence of the world hangs upon the presence of the righteous in it, is well
known in Rabbinic lore and prevalent in numerous discussions scattered in the
Talmud and in the Midrashic literature.64 In BT Yoma 38b, for example, several
sayings concerning the categorical unceasing presence of the zaddīqīm in each
and every generation are attributed to the same Amora mentioned above, R.
Yoḥanan.65 In the course of Yoma 38b, it is R. Yoḥanan who articulates the fol-
lowing well-known saying: “The world exists even for the sake of one righteous,
as it is said [Proverbs 10:25]: ‘And the zaddīq is the foundation of the world.’66
In times of calamity, when God in His wrath wishes to punish the iniquities of
the evil-doers by destroying the world, the presence of the righteous is indis-
pensable. The prototype and model for this virtuous and life-preserving righteous
248   The spiritual hierarchy
is Abraham, who, in arguing with God against His decision to destroy the
­sinning cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:13), succeeded in laying down
a binding protective precedent that hinges on the ubiquitous presence of a
number of men representing the loftiest human exempla. Hence the Talmudic
dictum: “The world cannot exist with less than thirty righteous [who are] like
Abraham our Father …”67
The principle that maintains a necessary and binding correlation between the
well-being of the world and the presence of a number of holy men in it, anchored
in late antique Rabbinic Judaism, is widespread also in early Islamic sources. One
of the earliest collections of traditions concerning the holy men in Islam is Kitāb
al-awliyāʾ (The Book of the Friends of God) by Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā
(d. 281/894),68 a prolific author and court educator from Baghdād and a near-­
contemporary of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. He cites the following tradition with a
chain of transmission (isnād) that ends with Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, a first/seventh-century
Jewish convert to Islam.69 It says: “After Noah’s generation (lit. people), there
never came upon the earth a generation without there being in it fourteen [men]
thanks to whom [Divine] punishment is lifted.”70 Noah is only one representative
of the line of righteous thanks to whom divine wrath is warded off. In the Islamic
lore, the analogy with Abraham is crucial and is found in many early traditions
concerning the holy men. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, for example, in his voluminous
compilation Nawādir al-uṣūl, dedicated a chapter to the description of the abdāl, a
fixed-number category of godly men who create an unbroken succession to pre-
serve the world against destruction.71 He cites the following prophetic tradition:
“The abdāl are thirty men whose hearts are on the mold of Abraham’s heart.
When one man dies, God substitutes him with another.”72
This analogy between the Judaic and the Islamic traditions concerning the
holy men has been dealt with in (at least) two scholarly works in which much
comparative material has been assembled.73 It would be superfluous to repeat
what has already been brought to bear. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s concepts on
wilāya, too, have been previously elaborated in scholarly literature.74 Therefore,
rather than summing up his ideas in this regard, I wish to return to Umm ʿAbd
Allāh’s dream in order to flesh out the distinction made by the messenger, and
symbolized by the two kinds of plants he is holding, between two categories of
religious personalities: the worshippers (al-ʿubbād) on the one hand and the
awliyāʾ on the other (see [nn 18–19]). When the dream image and its purport are
placed alongside al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s teachings at large, it transpires that his
understanding of wilāya reflects an analogous binary typology while also taking
it further: the binary message conveyed in the dream expands in al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī’s works to refer not only to the worshippers vis-à-vis the ‘friends’,
but to maintain that within wilāya itself there inheres a deeper binary distinction
between those named ṣiddīqūn, those who truly attain the rank of awliyāʾ Allāh,
and those named ṣādiqūn, the just ones, who attain only the lower ranks of
wilāya.75 What constitutes the one type and what the other? The follow up of this
question brings out some radical streaks in al-Tirmidhī’s understanding of the
man–God relationship inherent in wilāya and in human nature at large. Also, as
 Myrtle and holy men   249
in the case of previously surveyed myrtle image, al-Tirmidhī’s teaching of
wilāya retains further echoes of late antique traditions. The traditions in ques-
tion, to which I can point out only in brief, are associated with (apocryphal?)
Christian sources and notions and thus widen the outlook of pre-Islamic mater-
ials which form the background for al-Tirmidhī’s understanding of the ‘Friends
of God’ and, in the wake of prophecy, the special position they hold for the
Muslim community and for the world at large.

Who are the ‘free and noble’ (al-aḥrār al-kirām)?

Sīrat al-awliyāʾ is far from being a systematic work. Nevertheless, in it – as well
as in many of his other works – al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī consistently presents a
typology of the ‘Friends of God’ according to which the two types of awliyāʾ are
distinguished from one another not only in their behaviour and characteristics,
but also in the ‘locations’ allotted to them on the cosmic map of wilāya.76
Al-Tirmidhī’s cosmic-hierarchical distinction is expressed by two spatial
denominations: ‘the place of the free and noble’ (maḥall al-aḥrār al-kirām) –
the highest in its hierarchical nearness to God – vis-à-vis ‘the place of the just
ones’ (maḥall al-ṣādiqīn). Fundamental to this distinction is the characterization
of the ṣādiqūn as those among the awliyāʾ who rely on voluntary efforts and
strenuous ascetical activities. Al-Tirmidhī names the principle that motivates
them ṣidq, sincerity, veracity.77 Pietistic literature tends to regard sincerity and
voluntary effort as meritorious, commendable features required of the faithful.
But in his radical, nonconformist vision of human anthropology and psychology,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī reevaluates ‘good deeds’ (aʿmāl al-birr) and pious efforts
as activities, good in themselves, but more often than not attached to the wilful
self (al-nafs). Thus, he maintains that, among those who seek to become God’s
friends and attain a special place in His nearness, only a few are innocent of self-
regard. Such quality pertains to the inner sphere of the ‘Friends’, to an inner
circle into which only a few chosen ones, the truly saintly, are allowed access.
The distinction which sets the awliyāʾ apart is contingent, first, upon primordial
divine choice; and then, for the walī’s position in the divine scheme to be
attained, he must be taken through an educational–experiential process super-
vised by God’s spiritual helpers. What reveals the walī’s nature above all is his
eschewing falsehood and pretence, even to the minutest extent. Human nature,
according to al-Tirmidhī, makes this a near impossible endeavour; effortful
activities based on sincerity (ṣidq) – either in fulfilling the normative religious
duties or the supererogatory practices, are always bound up with the wilful self
(nafs); and wilful, effortful acts always end in false pretence (iddiʿāʾ). Ascetical
means by which one struggles against any worldly or egotistic inclinations tend,
in the last resort, to strengthen the will and the self. The so-called just man
(al-ṣādiq) who walks the path of efforts (mujāhada, jihād al-nafs), sooner or
later, despite his piety, will arrive at an impasse. Realizing that without efforts
he cannot proceed but that by efforts he remains chained to the nafs, he becomes
‘constrained’ (muḍṭarr). Constraint signals a dead-end for the will (irāda). At
250   The spiritual hierarchy
this point, being sincere in his wish to relinquish his reliance on self and efforts,
he falls into a state of helplessness and need (faqr, iftiqār, iḍṭirār). His call out
to God from this state can be nothing but sincere, without affectations. When his
sincere call (daʿwa khāliṣa) is answered, his heart is flown in a twinkle of the
eye from ‘the place of the ṣādiqūn’ (maḥall al-ṣādiqīn) to ‘the place of the free
and noble’ (maḥall al-aḥrār al-kirām).78 True wilāya, concludes al-Tirmidhī, is
not only contingent upon a primordial divine choice, it is also an act of renunci-
ation – not necessarily of the world and its assets, but of the reliance on the per-
sonal ability to achieve it. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī finds scriptural proof for his
challenging attitude by juxtaposing two Qurʾānic verses: “make a true effort for
God” (Q. 22:78) and “those who make an effort for Us, we shall surely guide
them to Our paths” (Q. 29:69). Logically, the two verses seem causally con-
nected: if you strive, then God will guide you. But al-Tirmidhī’s understanding
is dictated by a sensibility – we may qualify it as ‘a linguistic sensibility’ –
which construes the verbal form la-nahdiyannahum (“We shall surely guide
them”) as intrinsically associated, through the root h-d-y, with the word hadiyya,
gift.79 To him, the two verses confirm the typology according to which the effort-
making awliyāʾ, the ṣādiqūn, are not on a par with the ṣiddīqūn, those who are
given divine guidance as gift and grace.80 The latter are variously designated.
One of their designations is majdhūbūn, those who are ‘drawn-up’ to God’s
nearness through God’s will, not through their own.81 They are also named
ṣiddīqūn, awliyāʾ Allāh and aḥrār kirām, free and noble.
What does the designation ‘free and noble’ and the expression ‘the place of
the free and noble’ mean?82 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī provides a clue to these ques-
tions in another of his major opera, the Nawādir al-uṣūl – a large compendium
of ‘rare’ (or ‘precious’) traditions. In Chapter 67 of this compendium, he cites a
prophetic tradition:

God created Adam from a handful of soil which He took from the whole
earth. Human beings emerge, therefore, according to the state of the soil …
This is whence the even-tempered and the rough, the wicked and the well-
disposed [characters] ensue.83

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī comments on this tradition:

Good soil produces even-tempered and noble souls with no dryness

(kazāza), aridity ( yubūsa) or dishevelment (shaʿwatha) in them; they are
free and noble; their mothers bore them [free] from the yoke and desires of
the self (min riqqi ’l-nufūs wa-shahawātihā). As for the others, their soil
was rugged (kānat al-ḥuzūna fī turbatihim), and from this [kind of soil] –
dryness, dishevelment and hardness ensued; their mothers bore them slaves;
the yoke and desires of their selves dominate them.84

Evidently, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s approach is nothing if not utterly determinis-

tic: human character and destiny are predetermined and built into the very fabric
 Myrtle and holy men   251
(perhaps what today we would call ‘DNA’) of one’s being at the onset of creation
and birth. From a comparative perspective, I shall confine myself to the follow-
ing observations: the expression ‘free and noble’ in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
works, as well as in a few other Muslim sources, almost always occurs in the
context of a sermon attributed to Jesus (ʿĪsā ibn Maryam). Thus, in a sermon
adduced in Chapter 67 of the Nawādir al-uṣūl, from which we have been citing,
Jesus admonishes the Children of Israel saying: “[You are] neither fearful slaves
nor free noblemen (lā ʿabīd atqiyāʾ wa-lā aḥrār kuramāʾ)”. “What he means,”
explains al-Tirmidhī, is this:

You are neither as slaves (ʿabīd) who struggle with their selves and are
fearful of God ( yujāhidūna anfusahum wa-yattaqūna ‘llāh); nor are you as
freemen (min al-aḥrār) who were liberated from the yoke of the self and
travel to God as noblemen, without swerving and with no hesitation
( fa-sārū ilā ‘llāh taʿālā sayra ‘l-kirām bi-lā taʿrīj wa-lā taraddud).85

To paraphrase, this is how al-Tirmidhī seems to understand Jesus’ admonition:

O the Children of Israel, you belong neither to the one nor to the other of the two
types of the ‘Friends of God’. Via this exhortation, al-Tirmidhī takes the binary
typology of the awliyāʾ back to Jesus. Such a typology may, indeed, reflect the
Pauline distinction between the “sons of the free woman” and “the sons of the
slave woman” (see Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians 4:21–31). This association
may be supported by the fact that the very same chapter of the Nawādir al-uṣūl
(Ch. 67) deals, primarily, with the superiority of the Arabs, banū ismāʿīl, over
the Israelites, banū isrāʾīl. This may indicate a polemical response; for in his
epistle, Paul proclaims the superiority of the Children of Israel, those who
follow Jesus, over the Ishmaelites, the descendants of Hagar, the slave woman:
those who follow Jesus he identifies as the descendants of Sarah, the free
woman, while the Ishmaelite are the descendants of Hagar, the slave woman.86
The issue of ethno-spiritual and religious superiority in its wider, complex
polemical context, especially in view of late-antique Christian (or Judaeo-Christian)
ideologies, merits further exploration.87 Here, however, suffice it to say that
whatever the pre-Islamic background for this polemic, for al-Tirmidhī the desig-
nation ‘free and noble’, with its distinct Christian echoes, lies at the heart of a
teaching which upholds a universalistic deterministic typology, marking apart
human beings, societies, ethnic groups and religions at large and, among them,
in particular, the holy men.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have woven together two kinds of material: a personal account
of a dream with didactic texts which display key concepts regarding the holy
man and the spiritual hierarchy in Early Islam. This weaving was enabled by the
fact that both kinds of material were authored by the third/ninth-century mystic,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, in whose oeuvre the holy men or, more appropriately, the
252   The spiritual hierarchy
‘Friends of God’, occupy a central position. Moreover, his writings in this
regard had a significant impact on the teachings on wilāya in Islamic mysticism
at large. The dream, unlike the didactic texts, is presented in a direct and
straightforward style and does not offer any analysis or interpretation. Yet it is a
‘text’, and as such susceptible to all that readers do with texts, that is, interpret
them, comment on them, break them down and compare them with other texts.
Texts reflect their environment, not only in historical and sociological terms but
also in conceptual and doctrinal terms. In Early Islam, with prophecy coming to
an end in the wake of the Prophet Muḥammad, one of the most urgent settings
was the need to formulate and legitimize a strategy for the continuation of the
God–man relationship and communication. Both the dream and the didactic
texts circulating it reveal a historical and religious setting in which this con-
tinuity was assigned to the ‘Friends of God’, the awliyāʾ. This reflects the posi-
tion, adopted sweepingly by Ṣūfism, according to which the true successors of
the Prophet, alluded to in the maxim inna warathat a al-anbiyāʾ al-ʿulamāʾ u (“the
successors of the prophets are the religious scholars”), are recognized as
awliyāʾ. From this perspective, the ʿulamāʾ are those endowed with divine
knowledge, those who possess an inspired ‘knowledge of God’, al-ʿilm bi-’llāh.
This position adds an important perspective to the copiously studied topic of
debates in Early Islam around the question of post-prophetic succession and
authority. It points to a teaching according to which, beyond political power-
struggles between religious scholars and community leaders, another possibility
was also upheld: the supreme authority of the spiritual hierarchy of holy men; an
authority which, for some, possessed an overriding and divinely inspired power.
But the veneration of the holy men in Early Islam, be they the awliyāʾ or the
Shīʿī Imāms, was not an isolated intra-Islamic phenomenon. It reflects the
beliefs, traditions, and images which pervaded the religious scene in Late Antiq-
uity prior to the rise of Islam. In Judaism, Christianity, Manichaeism and other
Gnostic schools such as Mandaeism, the notion of men (and sometimes women),
distinguished from other believers by virtue of special qualities granted by
divine grace and election was widespread and pervasive. In The Making of Late
Antiquity, Peter Brown describes Late Antiquity as an era that saw “the rise of a
body of men led by self-styled ‘Friends of God’, who claimed to have found
dominance over the ‘earthly’ forces of their world through a special relation to
heaven”.88 These friends of God, according to Peter Brown, constituted “a group
made separate from and far superior to, their fellow men by reason of a special
intimacy with the divine”.89 In Islam, the post-prophetic vacuum which motiv-
ated the construction of distinctive theological doctrines, when combined with
the pervasive elevation of the ‘Man of God’ throughout Late Antiquity, marks
the phenomenon of the spiritual hierarchy as a ubiquitous and continuous pres-
ence from the dawn of mankind and from very early Islamic history. This is well
attested to in both Shīʿism and Ṣūfism. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s distinction
between the, to him erroneous, Shīʿī doctrine of the holy man as contingent on
genealogy (nasab) and kinship (ahl al-bayt) and between, to him the true, affili-
ation (nasab, nisba) which is based not on blood but on a special spiritual
 Myrtle and holy men   253
r­ elationship with God, still awaits scholarly attention.90 In this respect,
al-Tirmidhī’s writings offer a rare and fairly early outlook of the struggle, espe-
cially against the background of Imāmate theology, for the formation of a non-
sectarian ­ideology of the awliyāʾ, an inclusive ideology which allowed for
people with the appropriate qualities to be heralded as carriers of divine inspira-
tion and authority, regardless of their genealogical affiliations.
From the perspective of such a world-view of the spiritual hierarchy, there is
clearly a need to introduce comparative aspects into the study of Islamic mysticism,
and in particular to the study of its formative period. Notions and depictions of
the ‘holy men’ in Early Islam are not sheer direct borrowings from other tradi-
tions; but neither can they be described as an entirely independent and original
development of Islamic spirituality. Rather, they continue and confirm spiritual
trends and patterns which had persisted for centuries in the rich religious and
cultural sphere of Late Antiquity while, at the same time, forging a distinctive
theological environment and formulating an indigenous religious vocabulary and
syntax. To this syntax belongs the binary structure which pervades al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī’s writings. According to this binarity, ordinary worshippers
(al-ʿubbād) are distinguished from the ‘eminently just ones’ (al-ṣiddīqūn); in the
dream under discussion, this is symbolized by withering basil for the one type
versus evergreen myrtle for the other. At the same time, as in many of
al-Tirmidhī’s works, the ṣiddīqūn, those at the higher ranks of wilāya, are distin-
guished also from the ‘just ones’ (al-ṣādiqūn), thus suggesting an additional
inner hierarchical structure, also typologically binary. In fact, the binary syntax
goes beyond the realm of the holy man: Ṣūfī culture and vocabulary are
immersed in it.91 The formation of a binary vocabulary and outlook in the form-
ative period of Islamic mysticism and within the demands of a firm monotheistic
creed is yet another central theme with comparative overtones to which
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī is one of the most prolific contributors.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Journal of Semitic Studies 61
(2016): 463–95.
  2 See M.J. Kister, “Ḥaddithū ʿan banī isrāʾīla”, IOS 2 (1972), 215–39.
  3 For more concerning late antique perspectives in Early Islam, see Introduction, Late
Antiquity, note 35; see also Averil Cameron (ed.), Late Antiquity on the Eve of Islam
(London: Routledge, 2013).
  4 For critical observations concerning scholarly approaches to the question of relation-
ships which exist, or do not exist, between similar materials within two (or more)
­literary corpora, a relationship that is variably named influence, borrowing, intertex-
tuality etc. – see Ze’ev Maghen, “Intertwined Triangles”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 33 (2007), 17–98, especially the lengthy note 6, 19–20.
  5 Today this town is known as Termez. Geographically, it is situated on the northern
bank of the Oxus River, on the border of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
  6 See Chapter 10, n. 1.
  7 There exist two editions of this text: 1) M.Kh. Masud, “Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
Buduww Shaʾn”, Islamic Studies 4 (1965), 315–44; and 2) Badʾ shaʾn, ed. ʿUthmān
Yahya, printed with his edition of al-Tirmidhī’s Khatm al-awliyāʾ (Beirut: Al-Maṭbaʿa
254   The spiritual hierarchy
al-kāthūlīkiyya, 1965), 14–32. Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane included an annotated
translation of Badʾ shaʾn in their The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysti-
cism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), 14–36.
Radtke published also a German translation of the text together with a facsimile of
the Waliyuddin MS. in his article “Tirmiḏiana Minora”, Oriens 34 (1994): 242–98.
For the autobiographical genre, see Dwight F. Reynolds (ed.), Interpreting the Self:
Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2001); for al-Tirmidhī’s autobiography, see 119–31 et passim (in M. Cooperson’s
translation); cf. Reynolds, “Symbolic Narratives of Self: Dreams in Medieval Arabic
Autobiographies”, in On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature, ed. P.F.
Kennedy (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 261–86, esp. 270–2.
  8 See Radtke and O’Kane, “Introduction”, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic
Mysticism, 10.
  9 For the function of the series of dreams as teaching dreams, see Sara Sviri, “Dream-
ing Analyzed and Recorded”, in Dream Cultures: Explorations in the Comparative
History of Dreaming, eds D. Shulman and G.G. Stroumsa (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 252–73, and especially 262, 265 and 268; see also [n. 63].
10 See Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 24–6; see
also Sh. Shaked, “Visions in the Iranian Cultural Orbit”. Paper for the conference “The
World in Antiquity” held in Moscow in memory of Gregory Bongard-Levin, September
2009, 23–6. I am grateful to Prof. Shaked for allowing me to view a draft version of his
paper before publication: the account of al-Tirmidhī’s wife’s dream is there, [n. 12].
11 See note 7.
12 Shaked’s paper (see note 10) deals with the overall comparative topic of “Visions” in
late antique cultures and thus contributes to my general observations; it does not,
however, go into an analysis of the specific dream images.
13 White clothes and a white turban are worn by Zoroastrian priests in various ritualistic
ceremonies – see, for example, J.W. Boyd and R.G. Williams, “The Art of Ritual in a
Comparative Context”, in Zoroastrian Rituals in Context, ed. M. Stausberg (Leiden:
Brill, 2004), 137, n. 2; Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Prac-
tices (London: Routledge, 1979), 67 and 167. For the turban worn by Zoroastrian
laymen and priests in sacrificial rituals, mentioned by Greek historians, see Albert de
Jong, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Leiden:
Brill, 1997), 113–15. For the Mandaean white dress and turban, see below [n. 45].
For a more general view of Zoroastrian presence in Early Islam, see Mohsen Zakeri
(ed. and trans.), Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb. ʿAlī b. ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī
(d. 219/834) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʾid al-ḥikam, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill,
2007) (with thanks to Sh. Shaked); see also Chapter 1 in this monograph.
14 This rhetorical question alludes, no doubt, to the eschatological pool and to the lus-
cious depiction of Paradise in the Muslim tradition – see, for example, Q. 76: 12–21,
88: 10–16 etc.; for the ‘pool’, as well as the scales (mīzān) in what follows, both of
which allude to the eschatological scenes of the day of the resurrection of the dead –
see A.J. Wensinck, “Ḥawḍ”, EI2, Vol. 3, 286; A. El-Zein, “Water of Paradise”, Ency-
clopaedia of the Qurʾān, Vol. 5, 466; see also J.I. Smith, “Eschatology”, Encyclopae-
dia of the Qurʾān, Vol. 2, 44.
15 Q. 21:47; the verse continues thus: “… so that no man shall in the least be wronged”;
for the eschatological allusions of the scales, see note 14.
16 Interdictions against excess of speech can be found in many Ṣūfī manuals – see, for
example, al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, Bāb al-ṣamt (chapter on Silence), 57f.; for the prac-
tice of watching over speech in al-Tirmidhī’s works, see, for example, Kitāb
al-Riyāḍa, eds A.J. Arberry and A.H. Abdel-Kader (Cairo: Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʻat
Muṣṭafá al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1947), 45ff.
 Myrtle and holy men   255
17 The text reads nanzilu bayt ‘l-maqdis, which can also be understood as “we descend on
a

Temple Mount”; for angels residing in, or descending on, the Temple Mount/Jerusalem,
see Mujīr al-Dīn al-Ḥanbalī al-ʿUlaymī, al-Uns al-jalīl bi-taʾrīkh al-quds wal-khalīl,
Vol. 1 (Amman: Maktabat Dandīs, 1999), 360: “kull layl yanzilu sabʿūna alf malak
min al-samāʾ ilā masjid bayt al-maqdis …”. According to some Islamic traditions,
al-Khaḍir and Ilyās stay in Jerusalem during the month of Ramaḍān – see, for
example, Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh madīnat Dimashq, Vol. 16 (Beirut: Dār al-fikr, 1995),
428; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal is said to have seen al-Khaḍir and Ilyās in Jerusalem – see Ibn
Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Dār al-nahḍa, 1971),
334. A tradition reported in the name of ʿAlī says: “The abode of al-Khaḍir is Jerusa-
lem (maskan al-Khaḍir bayt u ‘l-maqdis)” – see ʿAlī b. Burhān al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī, al-
Sīra al-ḥalabiyya, Vol. 3 (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1989?), 133. Curiously, the angel’s
introduction in the dream is similar to the introduction of the angelic figure in Ibn
Sīnā’s Risālat ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān:
Then he said to me, “As to my country, it is Jerusalem (ammā baladī fa-madīnat
bayt al-maqdis). My profession is to be forever journeying, to travel about the
world (ammā ḥirfatī fa-l-siyāḥa fī aqṭār al-ʿawālim) so that I may know all its
conditions …”
see Ibn Sīnā, Risālat Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, ed. A. Amin (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1952), 45,
ll. 10–12. The idioms “we roam the earth” and “my profession is to travel about the
world” – in both cases using the Arabic root s-y-ḥ – is reminiscent of the biblical
idiom “they are the eyes of God who roam the entire land” (Zechariah 4:10 – using
the Hebrew verbal root sh-w-ṭ, as does Job 1:7) and “Go, walk about the land”
(Zech. 6:5–7 – using the Hebrew verbal root h-l-k). The relevance of the visions of
Zechariah for our discussion will be elaborated in what follows (see [n. 52]). In Job
1:7, Satan, one of God’s messengers (or Sons), when asked by God where he was
coming from, answers: “from roaming the earth” (mi-shūṭ ba-areṣ). The most poign-
ant biblical reference is to 2 Chronicles 16:9 – “For the eyes of the Lord roam
through the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is sincere with Him” – this,
just as in the dream, combines the motif of “God’s eyes” with that of strengthening
the hearts of the sincere worshippers (I am grateful to Prof. S. Japhet for pointing this
out to me). The topic of God’s roaming messengers, or God’s ‘eyes’ watching over
specific earthly zones and reporting to God of their news – a topic with rich com-
parative connotations – is too wide for the bounds of this enquiry, but the Mandaean
association is noteworthy.
18 For the ritualistic act of holding the myrtle in the right hand, see [nn 35–9].
19 “His other hand” is a euphemism common in Islamic parlance for the left hand.
20 Interestingly, rayḥān itself may mean myrtle and may thus be synonymous with ās –
see Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, Vol. 6 (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1956) 19: “wal-ās ḍarb
min al-rayāḥīn”; also ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Baghdādī, Khizānat al-adab, Vol. 2 (Cairo:
Al-Maṭbaʿa al-Mīriyya, 1881), 362: “wal-ās … huwa al-rayḥān.” In our dream text,
however, rayḥān is contextually contrasted with the myrtle and hence signifies
­seasonal herbs rather than the evergreen myrtle.
21 The function of the figure in the dream is to be viewed against a cultural background
associated with roaming messengers occasionally depicted as God’s eyes on earth
(see also [n. 17]). The expression ʿuyūn Allāh, God’s eyes, usually denoting human
beings who are appointed as God’s watchful eyes on earth and as God’s special mes-
sengers, appears in Islam in various sources, either with references to prophets (see
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ ‘s commentary to Q. 54:14 in Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Tafsīr
al-sulamī wa-huwa ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 2 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2001),
290, or with reference to ʿAlī, God’s awliyāʾ or the twelve Shīʿī Imāms, see, for
example, Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, Vol. 13, 309; Ibn Shahrāshūb, Manāqib āl Abī
Ṭālib, Vol. 3 (Al-Najaf: al-maṭbaʿa al-Ḥaydariyya, 1956), 316; – see [n. 17] and especially
256   The spiritual hierarchy
the references to Zechariah 4:10 and 2 Chronicles 16:9; for a reference to angels, see
Maḥmūd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī fī tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm wal-sabʿ
al-mathānī, Vol. 27 (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʼ al-Turāth al-ʻArabī, n.d.), 83.
22 The distinction between ‘worshippers’ (ʿubbād) in general and eminently just ones
(ṣiddīqūn) in particular is one of the most essential themes in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
works; it lies at the foundation of the binary typology he sees in the spiritual hier-
archy, wilāya (sometimes translated as ‘sainthood’). He develops his teaching on
wilāya particularly in his Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, where he distinguishes between two types
of awliyāʾ: the first type he variously names al-ṣādiqūn (see, e.g. 4, §8) and awliyāʾ
ḥaqq Allāh (e.g. 2 §3, 33 §47, 65, §89). Their spiritual rank is based on efforts and
these are always hampered by the lower-self (nafs). The second type is variously
named al-kirām (e.g. 17, §35), al-muḥaddathūn (e.g. 66, §89, 68, §91), al-ṣiddīqūn
(69, §92, 119, §148) and awliyāʾ Allāh (e.g. 2 §3, 33, §48, 72, §93). Their spiritual
rank is higher than that of the former type and it stems from God’s grace (minna) and
choice (iṣṭifāʾ). Sincerity (ṣidq) is required of both types, but in itself is insufficient
for reaching the uppermost ranks of wilāya – see, for example, 34, §50, 44, §§63–4,
94–5, §121. For al-mūqinūn, those who possess certitude ( yaqīn), a quality higher
than ṣidq, see, for example, 122, §150. For further discussion on the binary typology
of the spiritual hierarchy in al-Tirmidhī’s works, see [n. 72]; also Chapter 9 in this
monograph.
23 For the symbolic meaning of the myrtle’s evergreenness, see [nn 32–4]; cf. Bereschit
Rabba, eds J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck (Jerusalem 1965), Vol. 2, 692 (Ch. 63: 9/10, a
Midrash on Gen. 25:27; H. Freedman and M. Simon, in Midrash Rabbah: Genesis,
London 1961, Vol. 2, 565), where Jacob is likened to the fragrant myrtle and Esau to
a thorn-bush.
24 The question whether, at the stage of wilāya, fear is removed from the awliyāʾ as they
gain a sense of security (amn) is an important motif in Sīrat al-awliyāʾ – see, for
example, 62–3, §87.
25 The elevation of the goodness of the heart over and above excessive acts of worship is a
recurring theme in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s works and will become relevant in the dis-
cussion concerning the spiritual hierarchy below. Here are a couple of references: in
Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 132, 2–3 §60, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī transmits the following prophetic
tradition (ḥadīth nabawī): “The holy men (budalāʾ) of my people did not enter Paradise
due to excessive fasting and praying; they entered it thanks to the goodness of their
hearts (lit. chests – ṣudūr) and to the generosity of their souls;” for budalāʾ or abdāl, see
around note 67. In his Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877), 31–2, he
reports a well-known tradition concerning the superiority of Abū Bakr: “Abū Bakr did
not have superiority [over the other Caliphs?] due to his excessive fasting and praying;
he had superiority over them because of something that was in his heart.” Cf. Ibn Abī
al-Dunyā, Kitāb al-awliyāʾ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-kutub al-thaqāfiyya, 1413/1993),
12/8, 27/57, 28/58. Many more parallels can be adduced.
26 For studies on Zoroastrian eschatological presence in Islam, see, for example, E. Yar-
shater, “The Persian Presence in the Islamic World”, in R.G. Hovannisian and G.
Sabagh (eds), The Persian Presence in the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 44; Yarashter relies heavily on Sh. Shaked, From Zoroas-
trian Iran to Islam, Variorum Collected Studies, in particular (for eschatology), 144;
see also S. Shahid, The Last Trumpet: A Comparative Study in Christian–Islamic
Eschatology (Longwood: Xulon, 2005).
27 The following are a few selected instances of this comparative observation. Many
more instances could be referred to, but I do not wish to overcrowd the comparative
data. In Pliny’s Naturalis Historia the myrtle (Lat. Myrtus) is mentioned as a tree
with remarkable powers for prophecy and augury; it is associated with Venus and
hence used in wedding banquets; it is an ingredient in many medicinal and aromatic
 Myrtle and holy men   257
prescriptions; wreaths of myrtle are worn sometimes by triumphant army leaders
(instead of the more customary laurel) as also in many other auspicious instances –
see John F. Healey (trans. and annot.), Natural History by Pliny, a Selection (Penguin
Books, 1991), 203, 302 et passim; for Latin and Greek material concerning the
myrtle, see Catherine Connors, “Scent and Sensibility in Plautus’ Casina”, The Clas-
sical Quarterly, N.S. 47 (1997): 305–9. Much of the Hellenistic material concerning
the medicinal uses of the myrtle has been absorbed into Syriac documents. A Syriac
medical text, for example, enumerates scores of instances in which myrtle, or myrtle
oil, has been used in recipes for various medications – see E.A. Wallis Budge (trans.
and annot.), Syrian Anatomy, Pathology and Therapeutics or The Book of Medicine, 2
vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913) (for many medicinal concoctions based
on myrtle, see Index, Vol. 2, 774); according to Wallis Budge, this text is probably a
translation into Syriac from the Greek made by a Nestorian physician in the early
centuries of the Common Era (Introduction, v). In a Coptic treatise on exorcism, the
exorcist is instructed to “wear a crown of roses, have a twig of myrtle in [his] hand,
and rock salt in [his] mouth”—see F. Rossi, Gnostic Treatise on the Special Virtues
which the Celestial Spirits have from God, 1894 in E.R. Goodenough, Jewish
Symbols in the Greco-Roman World, Bollingen series 37, Vol. 4 (New York:
­Pantheon Books, c.1953–1968), 174. For myrtle in early Jewish medicinal and
­cosmetic prescriptions, see F. Rosner (trans. and ed.), Julius Preuss’ Biblical and
­Talmudic Medicine (New York: Sanhedrin Press, 1978), 305 (citing BT Gittin 68b)
and 372 (citing BT Shabbath 9). In a well-known passage from the Hekhalot Rabbati,
when R. Neḥunya ben ha-Qannah remains in a mystical trance, R. Ishmaʿel inserts “a
bough of myrtle full of oil …” into a “piece of very fine woolen cloth …” which had
been laid “beside a woman who… had not yet become pure …” This piece of cloth
suffused with myrtle-oil is placed “upon the knees of R. Neḥunya” in an extremely
cautious operation designed to bring the sage down unharmed – see G. Scholem,
Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, 1965), 11.
28 See, for example, BT. Rosh ha-Shana 23a, in a list of plants in both Aramaic and
Hebrew: ‫אסא הדס‬.
29 See David Testen, “Semitic Terms for ‘MYRTLE’: A Study in Covert Cognates”,
JNES 57 (1998), 281; also M. Levey, Early Arabic Pharmacology: An Introduction
based on Ancient and Medieval Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 64.
30 Asû, according to The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, means “physician”, and asûtu
denotes “medical practice, medical treatment, medical lore” – see Vol. A/2, 344, 351;
for Syriac, see, for example, J. Payne Smith (Margoliouth), A Compendious Syriac
Dictionary (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1903), 32; also Michael Sokoloff, A Syriac
Lexicon (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 66b. Note, however Widengren’s
reservation of the connection of āsa with words denoting healing – see G. Widen-
gren, “Review of Drower’s Water into Wine, London 1956”, JSS 2 (1957): 417–22;
cf. Testen’s above-mentioned article which suggests a different etymology, according
to which ās and hadas derive from a common origin – see also [n. 31].
31 For the use of myrtle in ancient Mesopotamia as ingredient for perfume in ritual offerings,
see the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (XI, 160 [!]) apud The Chicago Assyrian
Dictionary, Vol. A/2 (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1968), 342ff.; Andrew
George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003), 712–13. The collection of plants placed by Ūta-napišti in the ritual fire after the
Deluge – reed, cedar and myrtle – is similar to the ingredients in a concoction prepared for
magic rituals as inscribed on an Aramaic magic bowl from Mesopotamia – see J. Naveh
and Sh. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls. Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity
­(Jerusalem: Brill, 1985): bowl 13, 200 (12), 202 (17), 212 (15) and note the reference to
PT Sukka III, 53c; cf. also E.M. Yamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts (Piscataway,
NJ: Gorgias, 2005), 204 (text 15, 5).
 258   The spiritual hierarchy
32 In some Arabic-speaking areas, myrtle is known also as rayḥān or as marsīn (from
the Greek myrsiné)—see F. Rosner (ed. and trans.), Moses Maimonides’ Glossary of
Drug Names (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1979), 11; cf.
Werner Schmucker, Die pflanzliche und mineralische Materia Medica in Firdaus
al-Ḥikma des Ṭabarī (Bonn: Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn, 1969),
61, no. 19: ās (Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī, Firdaus al-Ḥikma,
382.4); it is noteworthy, especially in the context of Testen’s suggested etymology in
his above-mentioned article (see note 29), that in some Yemeni Arabic dialects,
myrtle is known as hadas or adas. For the plethora of therapeutic uses of the myrtle
in Islamic medicine, see the many occurrences of ās, dihn al-ās (myrtle oil), ḥabb
al-ās (myrtle seed), māʾ al-ās (myrtle water) in Ibn Sīnā, al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (Beirut:
Muʾassasat ʿIzz al-Dīn, 1987), Vol. IV (the Index), 89 (s.v. ās). See also Levey, Early
Arabic Pharmacology, 6, 64 and 76. This material should be viewed vis-à-vis the
Syriac Book of Medicine mentioned above, see [n. 24].
33 See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1375/1956), Vol. 6, 19; also,
al-Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs (Kuwait: Maṭbaʿat ḥukūmat al-kuweit,
1395/1975), Vol. 15, 425f. and the sources cited there. These two dictionaries often
rely on the third/ninth-century lexicographer Abū Ḥanīfa al-Dīnawarī (d. 282/895) –
see his Kitāb al-nabāt, ed. B. Lewin (Uppsala: Harrassowitz, 1953), 25f. For asā [!]
in the canonical Ḥadīth collections, see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la
tradition Musulmane (Leiden: Brill, 1933–1969), Vol. 1, 132.
34 For the most up-to-date synthesis of the extant information and speculations about
Jābir and alchemy in Early Islam, see Pierre Lory, Alchimie et mystique en terre
d’islam (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1989), 9–27 and the exhaustive bibliography in the notes.
35 For the Arabic text, see Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, “Le Livre du Mercure oriental, occidental,
et du feu de la pierre”, in M. Berthelot, La Chimie au Moyen âge (Amsterdam: Philo
Press,‫ﺫﻟﻚ‬1967 = Paris 1893),
‫ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺗﻈﻨﻪ … ﻭﻓﻲ‬ Vol.
‫ﻫﻮ ﺍﻵﺱ‬ III (L’Alchimie
… ‫ﺍﻵﺱ‬ Arabe),
‫ ﻭﻟﻴﺲ‬،‫ﻳﻜﻮﻥ ﺧﺎﻟﺼﺎ‬ 190,
‫)ﻳﺼﻔﻮ؟( ﺃﻭ‬ 15f.:
‫ﻳﺼﻔﺮ‬ ‫… ﻗﻄﺮﻩ ﺑﻘﻀﻴﺐ ﺍﻵﺱ ﺣﺘﻰ‬
‫ ﻭﻟﻴﺲ ﺍﻵﺱ … ﻫﻮ ﺍﻵﺱ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺗﻈﻨﻪ … ﻭﻓﻲ ﺫﻟﻚ … ﺍﻳﻀ ﺎﺡ ﺃﻣﺮ ﺍﻵﺱ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺳﻤﺘﻪ ﻣﺎﺭﻳﺔ ﺳﻼﻟﻴﻢ ﺍﻟﺬﻫﺐ ﻭﺳﻤﺎﻩ ﺳﻘﺮﺍ‬،‫… ﻗﻄﺮﻩ ﺑﻘﻀﻴﺐ ﺍﻵﺱ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﺼﻔﺮ )ﻳﺼﻔﻮ؟( ﺃﻭ ﻳﻜﻮﻥ ﺧﺎﻟﺼﺎ‬
‫ﺃﻣﺮ ﺍﻵﺱ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺳﻤﺘﻪ ﻣﺎﺭﻳﺔ ﺳﻼﻟﻴﻢ ﺍﻟﺬﻫﺐ ﻭﺳﻤﺎﻩ ﺳﻘﺮﺍﻁ )؟( ﺍﻟﻄﺎﺋﺮ ﺍﻷﺧﻀﺮ ﻭﺳﻤﺎﻩ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺤﻜﻤﺎء ﺑﻜﻞ ﺍﺳﻢ ﻭﻛﻞ ﻟﻘﺐ ﺿﻨﺎ ﺑﻪ ﻭﺻﻴﺎﻧﺔ ﻟﻪ … ﻓﻠﻨﻘﻞ ﺃﻭﻻ ﻟﻢ ﺳﻤﻮﻩ ﺁﺳﺎ ﻓﺄﻗﻮﻝ ﻟﻬ‬
… ‫ﺿﻨﺎ ﺑﻪ ﻭﺻﻴﺎﻧﺔ ﻟﻪ … ﻓﻠﻨﻘﻞ ﺃﻭﻻ ﻟﻢ ﺳﻤﻮﻩ ﺁﺳﺎ ﻓﺄﻗﻮﻝ ﻟﻬﻢ ﺳﻤﻮﻩ ﺑﺬﻟﻚ ﻟﺨﻀﺮﺗﻪ ﻭﻁﻮﻝ ﻣﻜﺜﻬﻢ )!( ﻣﻊ ﺍﺧﺘﻼﻑ ﺍﻷﺯﻣﺎﻥ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺤﺮ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﺮﺩ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺳﻮﺍ‬
For the French translation, see ibid., 212–16 and especially 214f. Cf. Paul Kraus,
Jabir ibn Hayyan, contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques dans l’Islam, Vol.
II (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale, 1942), 9 and 13.
36 On Maria, variably known as the Jewess or the Egyptian, see F. Sezgin, GAS, Vol.
IV, 70–3. For the ‘green bird’, cf. another dream of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s wife – see
B. Radtke and J. O’Kane, “The Autobiography of al-Tirmidhī”, in The Concept of
Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 1999, 26–7.
37 See Midrash Panim Aherim (in Sammlung Agadischer Commentare zum Buche
Ester), ed. S. Buber, Vilna 1886, version II, parasha 2: 79–82 (63), also Louis Ginz-
berg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1968), Vol. IV, 383–4.
38 See Leviticus 23:40; BT Sukka 12a, 32b–33a, 45a.
39 For holding the three plants bundle (named collectively lulav) in the right hand, see
BT, Sukka, 37b: “And Rabba said: the lulav (i.e. the palm branch bundle) one holds
in the right hand and the citron in the left” – I thank Dr Melila Eshed-Hellner for this
reference; see also Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Lulav, Ch. 7, 6 (translated
by S. Gandz and H. Klein in The Code of Maimonides, New Haven, CT, 1961, Book
Three, 397).
40 See Midrash Tehillim, ed. S. Buber (Jerusalem 1966), Psalm 17 (128–9).
41 See BT Shabbath 33b. Prof. Yehudah Liebes, to whom I am indebted for this refer-
ence, has suggested that this anecdote may allude to the efficacious qualities which
the myrtle supposedly possesses. For the use of myrtle in magical recipes, see [n. 28].
 Myrtle and holy men   259
42 See M.M. Bar-Asher and A. Kofsky, “Dogma and Ritual in Kitāb al-maʿārif by the
Nuṣayri theologian Abū Saʿīd Maymūn b. Al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī (d. 426/1034–35)”,
Arabica 52 (2005), 55. For the myrtle in Nuṣayri ceremonies, see ibid., note 72 and
note the sources cited there and the reference to the Mandaeans. With thanks to Prof.
Bar-Asher.
43 See, for example, K. Rudolph, “The Relevance of Mandaean Literature for the Study
of Near Eastern Religions”, ARAM (16) (2004), 2; see also K. Rudolph, Mandaeism,
3ff.; J. Bergman, J. Hjärpe and P. Strom, Gnostica – Mandaica – Liturgica (Uppsala,
1990), 119ff.; see also Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and
Modern People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Kevin Thomas van
Bladel, From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
44 For the Mandaeans in the modern period, see E.S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq
and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore, 2nd edn (Piscataway,
NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002); on the persecution of the Mandaean minority in Iraq and
Iran today, follow the website of the Society for Persecuted Peoples (Gesellschaft für
bedrohte Völker): www.gfbv.de; note also The Mandaean (Al-Mandāʾiyya [!], a
current magazine published by The Mandaean Association (UK) – with thanks to Dr
Sabah Malallah, chief editor of this publication.
45 For the divine messengers, or light beings named ʿuthria (sing. ʿuthra), who arrive from
the realm of the Great Life (about which see [n. 48]) and are personified in rituals by the
priests, see Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, 94: “ ʿuthria and malkia … are
semi-divinities who carry the will of the Great Life”, and see also Index, 433; note in
particular prayers no. 107 and 118 in The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans,
trans. E.S. Drower (Leiden, 1959): “In the Name of the Great Life! My good messenger
of light who travelleth to the house of its friends, come, direct my speech and open my
mouth in praise that I may praise the Great Life wholly.”
46 For the significance of the right hand in Mandaeism, see E.S. Drower, The Secret
Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 6, 13 and 19;
see also, The Canonical Prayerbook, 61 and n. 309, hymn 383.
47 See E.S. Drower, The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa (Vatican City:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1953), 62, n. 1; see also, Drower, The Mandaeans of
Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore (Oxford: The
Clarendon, 1937), 140–2, 205–9; The Canonical Prayerbook, 240ff.
48 “The Great Life” (ḥiia rbia) refers to the Lord of the heavenly realm of light which
the Mandaeans worship; for the intriguing expression al-ḥayāt al-ʿuẓmā, the greatest
life, used uniquely (?) by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, see Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 290, 425:
“fal-ḥayāt al-ʿuẓmā hiya ḥayāt al-ḥayy alladhī lā yamūtu” – “the greatest life is the
life of the Living who will not die.”
49 King, malka, is a Mandaean title for a light-being and can also refer to the priest who
performs the ritual – see, for example, Kurt Rudolph, Mandaeism (Leiden: Brill,
1978), 2; Drower, The Secret Adam, 56 and 101, n. 3; see also n. 45 above. The
image of the ‘king’ standing among his ‘men’ in a ritualistic assembly at which the
myrtle bears a distinctive role is strikingly reminiscent of the Nuṣayri description
cited above, as well as of the biblical image from the prophetic visions of Zechariah
(Zech. 1:8) which will follow – see [nn 39 and 52].
50 Hibil Ziwa, literally Abel of Light, one of the Adamite ‘light messengers’; on him see,
for example, Kurt Rudolph, “The Mandaean Religion”, Encyclopaedia Iranica Online,
April 2008; also Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and
the Beginnings of Christianity (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958), 74, 99, 121.
51 For the significance of the right hand, see [n. 39].
52 Although in Arabic literature in general and in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s writings in par-
ticular the idiom ‘water of life’, māʾ al-ḥayāt, is much more prevalent than al-ḥayāt
al-ʿuẓmā, the greatest life (see [n. 45]) its association with the heavenly life – as, for
example, in Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 284, 410ff. – is noteworthy; see, for example, ibid., 412:
260   The spiritual hierarchy
The life of the other world inheres in him in every thing; every thing in him is alive
from head to toe; each hair and each nail is alive by his life – that is, if they [!]
have drunk the water of life in the gate of Paradise (wa-ḥayātu al-ākhirati fī kulli
shayʾin minhu, fa-kullu shayʾin minhu ḥayyun min qarnihi ilā qadamihi, kullu shaʿratin
wa-kullu ẓifrin ḥayyun bi-ḥayātihi, wa-dhālika idhā sharibū māʾa ’l-ḥayāti bi-bābi
’l-jannati).
53 Of special interest are the references to the myrtle in E.S. Drower’s The Secret Adam;
see, for example, 87, n. 2: “The omission of myrtle and the myrtle wreath is a sin,
which … needs purification by baptism … and soon”; see also Drower, The Mandae-
ans of Iraq and Iran, 206:
… [the] drinking of fresh juice and water is combined throughout with myrtle rites
and the formal ‘smelling the perfume of the myrtle’, hereby intensifying … the
implied symbolism of evergreen immortality and of the resurrection forces of
spring, germination, and growth …
Cf. also, The Acts of Thomas, William Wright (ed.), Apocryphal Acts, vol. 1, Ch.
5, 175–6 ‫ܕܐܣܐ ܒܪܝܫܗ ܣܝܡ ܗܘܐ ܘܛܪܦܐ ܕܩܢܝܐ ܒܐܝܕܗ ܐܚܝܕ ܗܘܐ‬ ܵ ‫ – ܘܟܠܝܐܠ‬with thanks
to Dr Guy Ron-Gilboa: “wa-ḵlīlā d-āsē b-rēšēh sīm-hwā w-ṭarpā d-qanyā b-īḏēh
aḥīḏ-hwā”.
54 See, for example, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, 108ff., 115 et passim; also,
E.S. Drower, The Secret Adam, 61ff.; see also K. Rudolph, “Interaction with the
Iranian Religion”, Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, 2008.
55 See Kurt Rudolph, Mandaeism (1979), 6f. It is worth noting that in the last decades
the study of Mandaeism has been flourishing in several academic centres. Here I shall
confine myself to mentioning two conferences held by the Aram Society for Syro-
Mesopotamian Studies: the thirteenth international conference, The Mandaeans, held
at Harvard University – see the proceedings in Aram, Vol. 11/2, 1999, and the 26th,
The Mandaeism, held July 2009 at The Oriental Institute, Oxford.
56 The linguistic and semantic affinity of the Talmudic zaddīqīm and the Islamic
ṣiddīqūn is obvious. For further discussion, see Chapter 10 in this monograph.
57 For the idea that certain human beings (i.e. prophets and righteous) are superior to
angels, see, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb Adab al-nafs, eds Arberry and
Abdel Qader (Cairo: Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʻat Muṣṭafá al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1366/1947),
92: “Then [God] created Adam, Peace be on him, and made him his choicest
(iṣṭafāhu) and most excellent of His creation (badīʿ fiṭratihi) and He made the angels
prostrate before him (wa-asjada lahu malāʾikatahu).”
58 This, obviously, is connected with the tradition of a (fixed) number of righteous
who must be present in every generation for the world to subsist – for a comparative
discussion, see [nn 61–9].
59 On R. Yoḥanan b. Nappaḥa, one of the most eminent third-century ce Palestinian
Sages (d. 279), see A. Hyman, Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim (Jerusalem: Hotsaʼat
Ḳiryah neʼemanah, 1964), Vol. II, 653–72 (in Hebrew).
60 See R. Hayward, “Saint Jerome and the Aramaic Targumim”, Journal of Semitic
Studies 32 (1987): 105–23, and, in particular, 107ff.
61 See Targum Jonathan to Zechariah, trans. Tammie Wanta in Alexander Sperber
(ed.), The Bible in Aramaic, 4 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1959–1973), Vol. 3, 477; see also
R. Kasher, Toseftot targum la-neviʾim (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 213 and 280
(in Hebrew/Aramaic).
62 See the Aramaic Targum to Es. 2:7 in A. Sperber (ed.), The Bible in Aramaic,
Vol. IVa: The Hagiographa. Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden, 1968),
184–5; also, Midrash Tehillim, ed. Buber, Psalm 22, para. 3, 181: “Esther was named
Hadassah … due to her righteousness”; also, Midrash Panim Aḥerim, ed. Buber,
version II, parasha 2: 79–82, 63.
 Myrtle and holy men   261
63 For a fuller elaboration, see Sviri, “Dreaming Analyzed and Recorded”; see also [n. 7].
64 For a thematic survey, see E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs
­(Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1975), 487ff. and note Urbach’s assessment that this
concept “became the accepted view of the Palestinian Amoraim in the second half of
the fourth century” (489–90). For a discussion on the myrtle as symbol of the right-
eous, see Rudolf Mach, Der Zaddik in Talmud und Midrasch (Leiden: Brill, 1957),
103–4, n. 8.
65 R. Yoḥanan said: “A righteous does not pass away from this world before a righteous
like him is created.” And also: “The Blessed Be He saw that the righteous are but
few, so He planted them [!] in every generation” – one wonders whether, when
choosing the verb ‘plant’ (shtalān), R. Yoḥanan has in mind the image of the myrtle
upon which he has elaborated in the passage from San. 93a – see [n. 56].
66 For an in-depth analysis of concepts and sources associated with this saying and
verse, see Y. Liebes, “Ha-mashiaḥ shel ha-Zohar”, in The Messianic Idea in Jewish
Thought (Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities: a Study
Conference in Honour of the Eightieth Birthday of Gershom Scholem, December
1977) (Jerusalem, 1982), 118ff. (in Hebrew; English translation A. Schwartz, S.
Nakache, P. Peli as “The Messiah of the Zohar”, in Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar
[Albany, NY: SUNY, 1993], 12ff.).
67 See P.T., Tractate ʿAvoda Zara, 9a, Section II:1 (English trans. J. Neusner in The
Talmud of the Land of Israel: a Preliminary Translation and Explanation, Chicago
1982, Vol. 33, 53); also Bereschit Rabba, Vol. I, 330 (Ch. 35, 2) and Vol. II, 501–2
(Ch. 49, 3; ET in Midrash Rabbah: Genesis, Vol. I, 283 and 423); cf. Cant. Rabba 7,
8 (English translation M. Simon in Midrash Rabbah: Song of Songs, London, 1983,
Vol. IX, 294–5); BT Sukka 45b, Sanhedrin 97b (English trans. I. Epstein in The
­Babylonian Talmud [London 1938], Vol. 8, 209–10 and Vol. 24, 659–60).
68 On him, see EI2, Vol. III, 684 (A. Dietrich).
69 On him, see EI2, Vol. IV (online edn) (M. Schmitz).
70 See Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Kitāb al-awliyāʾ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-kutub al-thaqāfiyya,
1413/1993), 28, no. 61: “mā atā ʿalā al-arḍ qawm baʿda qawm Nūḥ illā wa-fīhā
arbaʿata ʿashara yudfaʿu bihim al-ʿadhāb.” The adjacent tradition in Kitāb al-awliyāʾ
(no. 62), reported in the name of Ibn ʿAbbās, one of the most eminent Companions of
the Prophet Muḥammad, argues that the required number is five, not fourteen.
Al-Suyūṭī, a ninth/fifteenth-century author (d. 911/1505), brings the following
variant: “After Noah the earth has never been devoid of seven [men] due to whom
God defends the people of the earth” – see “al-Khabar al-dāll ʿalā wujūd al-quṭb
wal-awtād wal-nujabāʾ wal-abdāl” in al-Ḥāwī lil-fatāwī (Beirut, Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 1403/1983), Vol. 2, 241–55, 246. The numbers of the indispensable holy
men varies, but the notion that the peace and well-being of the world is maintained
thanks to this or that number is persistent in both the Judaic and the Islamic traditions.
71 Abdāl, or budalāʾ, is one of the oldest terms to be found in Islamic literature which
carries the connotations of ‘holy men’ – see J. Chabbi, “Abdāl”, Encyclopaedia
Iranica, Vol. 1, 173–4.s.
72 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877), Ch.
51, 69: al-abdāl thalāthūna rajulan qulūbuhum ʿalā qalb Ibrāhīm, idhā māta al-rajul
abdala ‘llāh makānahu ākhar; although the etymology of the term abdāl is by no
means clear, it is associated with the root b-d-l which suggests changing, replacing,
substituting.
73 See Mach, Der Zaddik in Talmud und Midrasch; also, Paul B. Fenton, “La Hiérarchie
des saints dans la mystique juive et dans la mystique islamique”, in M. Ḥallamish
(ed.), ʿAlei Shefer. Studies in the Literature of Jewish Thought Presented to Rabbi Dr.
Alexander Safran (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1990), 49–73; also Paul B.
Fenton, “The Hierarchy of Saints in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism”, Journal of
the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society 10 (1991): 12–34; see also H. Schwarzbaum,
262   The spiritual hierarchy
“The Thirty-Six Righteous in Jewish Folklore”, in E. Yassif (ed.), Roots and
­Landscapes: Studies in Folklore (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 1993),
84–95 (in Hebrew).
74 See Bernd Radtke, “The Concept of Wilāya in Early Sufism”, in L. Lewisohn (ed.),
Classical Persian Sufism: From its Origins to Rumi (London: KNP, 1993), 483–96
(= The Heritage of Sufism, Volume I: Classical Persian Sufism: From Its Origins To
Rumi (700–1300) [Oxford: Oneworld, 1999]); Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the
Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn ʿArabī (Cambridge, The
Islamic Texts Society, 1993), esp. Ch. 2, 26–46 et passim.
75 See [nn 18–19].
76 For more on this, see Sara Sviri, “Questions and Answers: A Literary Dialogue
between al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Ibn al-ʿArabī”, in Studies in Honor of Shaul
Shaked, eds Yohanan Friedmann and Etan Kohlberg (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy
of Sciences and Humanities, 2019), 141–57.
77 The polarity of ṣādiq versus ṣiddīq brings to mind the distinction between ‘perfect’
(gmīrē) and ‘upright’ (kēnē) in the Syriac Book of Steps (Liber Graduum) – see
Robert A. Kitchen and M.F.G. Parmentier, The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber
Graduum (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2004), Ch. 6, 61ff. and Ch. 14,
135ff. This seems yet another ‘reverberation’ of late antique mystical systems, which
could be further explored.
78 See Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 16 §32: fa-lammā ujībat li-hādhā al-muḍṭarr daʿwatuhu ṭīra bi-
qalbihi min maḥall al-ṣādiqīn fī ṭarfati ʿayn ilā maḥall al-aḥrār al-kirām; for the
ṣādiqūn as distinguished from the ṣiddīqūn, see [n. 19].
79 For a fuller, more complex, analysis of the semantics of the root h-d-y, see al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 16 §31; on al-Tirmidhī’s mystical linguistic, see Chapter 12
in this monograph.
80 For the distinction al-Tirmidhī makes in this respect between bayt al-ʿizza (the House
of Power) – the place reached by the ṣādiqūn, and al-bayt al-maʿmūr (the Inhabited
House) – the place reached by the ṣiddīqūn (also referred to as aḥrār kirām), a dis-
tinction laden with cosmological and theological allusions, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 17–18 §35; also Sviri, “Questions and Answers”.
81 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 103 §132:
… the holy man who is drawn-up [by God] (al-walī al-majdhūb) needs a period of
time in being drawn, in as much as the effortful walī needs it in his sincerity (ṣidq);
except that the latter’s purification (taṣfiya) depends on his own efforts, whereas
the purification of the drawn-up walī – God takes charge of it with His lights
( yatawallāhā ‘llāh bi-anwārihi) …
See also Chapter 9 in this monograph.
82 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, ed. Radtke (1992), 16–17.
83 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl (Istanbul: Dār al-Saʿāda, 1294/1877), Ch. 67,
96: inna ‘llāha tʿālā khalaqa ādam min qabḍa qabaḍahā min jamīʿ al-arḍ fa-jāʾa banū
ādam ʿalā qadr al-arḍ … wa-min dhālika al-sahl wal-ḥazn wal-khabīth wal-ṭayyib. It is
worth noting that Ch. 67 is one of the longest and most challenging chapters of this com-
pilation (95–107). It hinges on far-reaching ethno-theological concepts based on the
binary principle which lies at the heart of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s world-view.
84 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 67, 96; for a description of the
‘drawn-up walī (al-walī al-majdhūb)’ as being from ‘good soil’ (ṭayyib al-turba), see
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 104 §133.
85 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 67, 96.
86 It should also be noted that the idiom ‘free and noble’ echoes ‘stoic’ principles; see,
in particular, Philo’s essay “Every Good Man is Free” – Philo Alexandrinus, Philo,
edited by F.H. Colson, G.H. Whitaker and Ralph Marcus, Vol. 9 §§119ff. et passim
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966, reprint).
 Myrtle and holy men   263
87 For the polemical context suggested here, note the references made by S. Pines to
Sozomenus, a fifth-century Christian church historian from Palestine, and to his His-
toria Ecclesiastica – see Pines, “Jāhiliyya and ʿIlm”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam, Vol. 13 (1990), 185, n. 26. With thanks to Michael Ebstein.
88 See Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1993 [1978]), 56.
89 Ibid.
90 See, for example, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ §64, 44:
Then, when God took to Him His Prophet, God’s blessings be on him, He placed in
his community forty righteous people (ṣayyara fī ummatihi arbaʿīna ṣiddīqan) due
to whom the earth subsists (bihim taqūmu al-arḍ); these are the people of his
household and family (fa-hum ahl baytihi wa-ālihi).
see also, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Chs 50–1, 68ff.; Ch. 222, 263ff. See
also Michael Ebstein, “Spiritual Descendants of the Prophet: al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Ibn al-ʿArabī and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ on Ahl al-Bayt”, in L’Ésotérisme shiʿite, ses
racines et ses prolongements, edited by M.A. Amir-Moezzi (Turnhout: Brepols,
2016), 539–71.
91 See Chapters 7, 8 and 9 in this monograph.
Part V
Language and hermeneutics
12 The power of words
Mystical linguistics in al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī1

Introduction
In the Judaeo-Islamic tradition, language is the divine instrument of creation: God
said, and the world was. According to both the Pentateuch and the Qurʾān, existence
is bound by a word pronounced by God in the act of creation. This word, or logos, is
the imperative form of the existential verb – yehi in Hebrew (derived from h-w-y),
kun in Arabic (derived from k-w-n). Energized by the ‘meaning’ conveyed in it, the
existential verb manifests an extraordinary potency, the potency to transform the
primordial nothingness into actual existence: through the logos non-existents
become existent and creation emerges ex nihilo. But language is also a human instru-
ment; indeed, the human function par excellence. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the Judaeo-Islamic religious perspective, which has assigned creative power to syl-
lables and words divinely pronounced, has also, by extension, assigned potency to
words uttered by the human instruments of speech. Within Jewish mysticism, the
pivotal position of language is abundantly attested to and universally acknow-
ledged.2 The attitude towards language within Islamic mysticism, however, is more
complex and of a twofold nature: on the one hand, ­evidence for the fascination of
certain Muslim mystics with words and with the power they possess has never been
lacking; yet at the same time this fascination is curbed not only by the desire to keep
the mysteries of language sealed,3 but also by a strong attraction to, and a preference
for, the silence that lies beyond words.4 Correspondingly – in spite of the fair
number of studies that can be mentioned – far more scholarly attention has been paid
to the mystical implications of language in Judaism than to its counterpart in Islam.5
One of the early Muslim mystics in whose oeuvre language holds a central
position is al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. Among early mystics, he is unique in having
developed an elaborate – though far from systematic – ‘theory’ of language,
especially in its relationship to mystical knowledge. In what follows, I shall
examine some of his statements and insights concerning sacred language, the
efficacy of sacred formulae, and the centrality of the science of language for the
characterization of mystical knowledge and its upholders, the awliyāʾ. In this
examination, I shall survey al-Tirmidhī’s interpretation and analysis of some of
the Qurʾānic verses and the prophetic traditions from which he derives the inspi-
ration for his distinctive discourse on mystical linguistics.
268   Language and hermeneutics
Words of power between magic and mysticism
It is related of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf, one of the ten blessed Companions of
the Prophet Muḥammad to whom Paradise was vouchsafed during their lifetime
(al-ʿAshara al-mubashshara), that whenever he entered his house he would
recite the Verse of the Throne (āyat al-kursī) at its four corners in order to
protect all sides of the house from the evildoings of Satan. This fourfold ritual,
echoes, no doubt, pre-Islamic prophylactic practices.6 In performing it, ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf would recite one of the longest single verses in the Qurʾān:

God there is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him
not, neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth.
Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows
what lies before them and what is after them, and they comprehend not any-
thing of His knowledge save such as He wills. His Throne comprises the
heavens and earth … He is the All High, the All-glorious.
(Q. 2:255)7

The extraordinary efficacy of this verse is confirmed in a tradition related by

Ubayy b. Kaʿb, a Medinese companion. Among other things, he was known for
his insistence, against highly distinguished opposition, on including the two pro-
tective Sūras 113 and 114, al-muʿawwidhatāni, in the canonical version of the
Qurʾān.8 The Prophet had asked him which of the verses in the book of God is
the most powerful. Ubayy recited: Allāhu lā ilāha illā huwa ‘l-ḥayy al-qayyūm –
“God there is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting” – to the end of the
verse (Q. 2:255). Approvingly, the Prophet struck him on his chest saying: “O
Abū ‘l-Mundhir, may you derive delight [from this] knowledge! In the name of
Him in whose hand Muḥammad’s soul lies – this verse has a tongue and two lips
with which it hallows the angel at the flank of the Throne.”9
Another account validating the special rank of this verse comes from Sahl
al-Tustarī, an early mystic from Baṣra (283/896). According to al-Tustarī’s
Tafsīr, it was revealed to him in a vivid, living experience that the power of this
verse rests upon the fact that it contains God’s Supreme Name (ismu ‘llāh
al-aʿẓam).10 “This is the greatest verse in the Book of God,” Sahl says of āyat
al-kursī.

It includes the supreme name of God which is written in the sky with green
light in a single line from east to west. I used to see it written like that in the
Night of Might (= laylat al-qadr) when I was in ʿAbādān.11

Clearly, the purpose of this cluster of traditions, as of many others in the

same vein, is to establish the fact that certain verses, formulae, words, names,
and even letters, are endowed with extraordinary power. By reciting them, man,
too, may gain power over malevolent entities and impending calamities and
even, provided he or she belongs to the spiritual elite, gain entrance into sacred
and mystical realms.12
 The power of words   269
The Verse of the Throne is only one of many protective ‘formulae’ (kalimāt)
which al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī records and comments upon in his compendium
Nawādir al-uṣūl (The Rarest [or ‘most precious’] of Traditions) and whose
power he ponders in several of his works. The Nawādir opens with a short nar-
rative in which a man complains to the Prophet that he was bitten by a scorpion
and could not sleep all night. The Prophet instructs him to recite the following
formula before retiring at night: I take refuge in God’s perfect words against the
evil which He has created.13 “If you do so,” the Prophet says, “then, God willing,
nothing will harm you till you wake up.” A few variants that follow this version
promise similar protection when stopping at a way-station (manzil) or when
waking up with a fright (fazaʿ) in the middle of the night. Fathers and grand-
fathers, we are told, recite these special words to ask protection for their off-
spring: The Prophet, reciting “By God’s perfect words I ask that you be pro-
tected from any devil or creeping venomous creatures and from all evil eye,”14
used this formula to ask protection for his grandchildren Ḥasan and Ḥusayn.
“My father Abraham,” he would say, “used to protect by it [his sons] Ishmael
and Isaac.”15
Invocations and sacred protective formulae – as has been established in the
extensive study of the Aramaic ‘magic’ bowls from Mesopotamia16 – present a
meeting point of normative religion and magic. In Early Islam, the attitude of a
few pious Muslims towards the two protective Sūras par excellence,
al-muʿawwidhatāni, shows the ambivalence, even suspicion, with which texts
that smacked of the workings of ‘magic’ were regarded. In contrast to the
overall reverence with which these Sūras were regarded by most eminent Mus-
lims, there is ample evidence that the legitimacy of their use as talismanic
­invocations, and even their inclusion in the Qurʾān, was strongly debated. In his
al-Durr al-manthūr, al-Suyūṭī has recorded in detail the controversy regarding
such inclusion. It transpires that authoritative figures as ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās
and ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd shunned them altogether.17 Ibn Masʿūd, we are told,
used to erase them from his muṣḥaf warning: “Do not mix the Qurʾān with what
does not belong to it. These two are not [part] of God’s Book. The Prophet was
told to use them merely as protective formulae.” And, faithful to his injunction,
Ibn Masʿūd – alone, it seems, of all the Prophet’s Companions – refrained from
reciting them.18
Between evidence for the widespread use by most devout Muslims of verses
and invocations as prophylactic formulae19 and the sporadic wish of a few pie-
tists to keep Islam clean of any practices which may have ‘magical’ undertones,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī offers a perspective which connects the potency of words
not with ‘magic’ but with ‘holiness.’ According to this perspective, it is the
mystic, the Friend of God (al-walī), and not the ‘magician’ (al-sāḥir) who truly
acquires the knowledge of the power that words contain. The former, contrary to
the latter, knows how to use this power effectively without losing sight of their
ultimate single source. It is in accordance with this perspective and with
al-Tirmidhī’s mystical analysis of linguistic elements that I have chosen to label
his system ‘mystical linguistics’.20
270   Language and hermeneutics
To know ‘the thing itself’
Nowhere in his work does al-Tirmidhī offer a systematic discourse of sacred
­language – far from it. It would be misleading to attempt to portray his linguistic
outlook as a neat, coherent system. Nevertheless, throughout his large corpus,
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī displays with consistency, and in his distinctive phraseo-
logy, the understanding that language occupies a pivotal position in the divinely
created order. His ideas concerning the unique features of language are stamped
with the hallmark of his comprehensive teaching of wilāya. For him language –
notably the Arabic language – is not only the means whereby God created the
world; not only the divine gift to humanity by which it is distinguished from
both animals and angels; it is also the vessel within which God has concealed
His secrets.21 In the quest for divine gnosis (maʿrifa), these secrets can and, in
fact, should, be deciphered. But not all and sundry are up to the task. The power
to decipher the hidden ‘meanings’ that language holds is part and parcel of the
special science (ʿilm) that God’s men, the awliyāʾ, have inherited from
the prophets.22 Mystical linguistics, according to al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, is the
foundation of ‘the science of the friends of God’ (ʿilm al-awliyāʾ). God has
endowed all men with the ability to understand and employ language in order to
distinguish between existents, and He has endowed His friends with the special
ability to unravel, through language, His hidden secrets. All aspects of language
are thus sacred by definition, although the disclosure of God’s mysteries encapsul-
ated in words and letters was reserved for Adam and after him for the prophets and
the awliyāʾ. Consider, for example, the following passage from al-Tirmidhī’s
Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān, in the context of interpreting the particle in/inna:

And if an inquirer asks, ‘whence this [knowledge]?’ he is [to be] answered:

This is the Supernal Wisdom (al-ḥikma al-ʿulyā), the Wisdom of Wisdom.
It is concealed from all beings except from God’s prophets and from the
elect among His friends whom He has designated by His Will (ahl al-ṣafwa
min awliyāʾihi al-mukhtaṣṣīn bi-mashīʾatihi). It is from letters that names
come to be, and it is to letters that they return. This is a concealed science
(makhzūn min al-ʿilm); no one can comprehend it but the Friends of God.
Their intellects comprehend by means of God while their hearts are attached
to Him, befuddled by His Godship (fa-walihat fī ulūhiyyatihi).23 It is there
that the veil is lifted off these letters and off the attributes – the attributes of
the [Divine] Essence.24

A section of this esoteric knowledge is the science of primordiality, ʿilm al-badʾ,

of which al-Tirmidhī says: “in the letters of the alphabet the whole science of
primordial things is contained (wa-fī ḥurūf al-muʿjam ʿilm al-badʾ kulluhu).”25 It
is by means of letters, the a-b-j-d, that the unfolding of the divine order and gov-
ernance (al-tadbīr al-ilāhī) takes place. The science of God’s Governance of the
world (ʿilm al-tadbīr), which encompasses all existents and eventualities from
the creation of Adam to the end of days (yawm al-waqt al-maʿlūm), is contained
 The power of words   271
in the twenty-eight or the twenty-nine letters of Arabic – ‘twenty-nine’ since,
according to some systems, the lām-alif combination is counted as the twenty-
ninth ‘letter’.26 In this vein al-Tirmidhī comments upon the Qurʾānic account of
God teaching Adam, and not the angels, the names of all existent things:

Names contain all the things that God taught Adam, peace be on him. By
displaying all His creation in front of him, God made manifest Adam’s
superiority over the angels. Then He said [to the angels], … “Now tell me
the names of these, if you speak truly.” They said, “Glory be to Thee! We
know not save what Thou hast taught us. Surely, Thou art the All-knowing,
the All-wise.” He said, “Adam, tell them their names.” And he told them
(Q. 2:31). Thus God made manifest Adam’s superiority over the angels con-
cerning the science [of names]. He taught him both the science and the
foundation of the science: as for science, it is the names; as for the founda-
tion of the science, it is the letters, the twenty-eight letters from which [all]
languages began.27

Language is thus both revealing and concealing. It is ‘revealing’ since all that
exists becomes explicitly identified by being named. And it is ‘concealing’,
since ‘naming’ is no more than a tool which encodes and clothes the true
essence of the named; the ‘essence’ of a thing can only become truly known by
means of a God-inspired knowledge. This is how al-Tirmidhī brings this under-
standing to bear:

God taught Adam the names … then He taught him the explanation
(bayān), as He has said: “and He has taught him the explanation” (Q. 55:3);
that is to say, the distinction (tamyīz) between things according to their
[different] aspects. … By means of letters he [learnt to] distinguish between
things (ashyāʾ) and by means of names he came to know their hidden con-
tents and the essences (jawāhir) concealed within the[ir] elements
(ʿanāṣir).28

The interdependence of language and mystical knowledge is repeatedly emphas-

ized by al-Tirmidhī in his magnum opus, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ also (and traditionally)
known as Khatm al-awliyāʾ.29 In answer to the question, “What is the science by
which the Friends of God are distinguished,” he writes:

[It comprises of] the science of primordiality (ʿilm al-badʾ), the science of
pre-ordained destinies (ʿilm al-maqādīr), the science of the Day of the
Covenant (ʿilm yawm al-mīthāq) and the science of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf).
These are the foundations of Wisdom, namely the Supernal Wisdom
(al-ḥikma al-ʿulyā). This science becomes manifest to the most eminent of
the friends (kubarāʾ al-awliyāʾ) and from them it is passed to those who
have a share in God’s friendship (yaqbaluhu ʿanhum man lahu ḥaẓẓ min
al-wilāya).30
272   Language and hermeneutics
Hence, the process of acquiring mystical knowledge begins with the knowledge
of the true, concealed meanings of names/words. Names, as has been seen, are
God-given and form part of the act of creation. In fact, every ‘thing’ has been
created with its proper ‘name’. From the esoteric viewpoint, this name (ism) is
not an arbitrary or random combination of letters or sounds; neither is it merely
a conceptual, conventionally accepted reference to the thing it names. Rather, it
is inherently, essentially, connected with that thing. The name, by its affinity
with the thing it names, marks out the thing’s essential ontological aspect. In
al-Tirmidhī’s terminology, it points to the ‘core’ (lubb), or the ‘light’ (nūr) or
the ‘meaning’ (maʿnā) of the ‘thing’. Since ‘things’ (ashyāʾ) are known by their
names (asmāʾ), to know the name of a thing – in the mystical sense of ‘know-
ing’ – is to know the thing itself. True knowledge of existent things, al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī tells us, in contrast to mere referential knowledge, is attained by
means of penetrating, through mystical contemplation, the very core of a word/
name (ism). In this mystical–epistemological process, first, the name of a thing
becomes known; this is the external, or referential, aspect of knowing – it is not
yet true knowing. But once this external knowledge has been established, the
astute mystic plunges into a contemplative mode through which the thing itself
may become known. This is the internal, or true, aspect of knowing. It can be
said, therefore, that ‘names’ are themselves, in their core, living ‘things’ and that
their power derives from mystically tapping into their ontological vitality.

Deciphering the divine code

In al-Tirmidhī’s system, one aspect of the process of ‘deciphering’ God’s secrets
by means of language has a ‘deconstructive’ nature: the mystic engaged in con-
templation – the description of which will follow below – focuses on unraveling
the meanings contained within the smallest units of language. Sounds and letters,
the elementary components of words (what we would call the phonological
aspects of words) are for him the basic sense-carriers which clothe something that
inheres within them. When mystically observed, each letter is seen to allude to a
layer of meaning, or ‘light’, extending beyond its sensorial or mental mani-
festations. When the ‘meanings’ of all the components that make up a word/name
are added up, the true sense of the word/name, as well as the truth of the ‘thing’ it
names, emerge. A name is thus more than the sum total of its articulated or com-
prehended components. The vitality and power that linguistic formulae possess
emanate precisely from the activation, through mystical visualization, of the sum
total of ‘meanings’ or ’lights’ contained within each of their components.31
In the opening passage of “The Science of God’s Friends” (ʿilm al-awliyāʾ), a
treatise in which discussions concerning language occupy an important place,
al-Tirmidhī lays down these principles and illustrates his method by decoding
the ‘secrets’ hidden in the word ism (= name/word):

Know … that knowledge in its entirety is [contained] in names; names mark

things out. There is no existent which has no name. Its name is the indicator of
 The power of words   273
this existent. [The word] ‘name’ (ism) is derived from [the word] ‘mark’
(sima). Every name points to the object [which it names], so much so that [the
word] ‘name’ (ism) in itself points to [the meaning of] name.32 [The word]
‘name’ – ism – is made out of two letters: sīn and mīm, indeed, it is sm; and the
alif has been added in its beginning as a prop (ʿimād), hence [the word] has
become ism … The letter sm derives from sanāʾ (radiance) and the letter mīm
derives from majd (glory). Sanāʾ is [the same as] ḍiyāʾ (glowing light) and
majd is the core (lubb) and the hidden aspect (maknūn) of a thing. This indi-
cates that [the word] ism is thus named since it illuminates for you the core of a
thing and its hidden aspect. The name, therefore, translates and reveals for you
the hidden aspect of a thing. This is the meaning of the [word] ‘name’.33

A few interpretative methods are combined in the complex process described

here: etymological and semantic affinity (ism < sima = sign, mark);34 grammati-
cal analysis of the root-radicals (ism < s, m); the semantics of radicals, based on
the understanding that the radicals of a word are an acronym encrypting funda-
mental semantic concepts (sīn = sanāʾ mīm = majd);35 the application of syn-
onyms to highlight the meaning of the fundamental, or core, concepts
(sanāʾ = ḍiyāʾ; majd = lubb, maknūn) and, finally, the synthesis with which the
whole ‘deconstructive’ process culminates, leading to the true understanding of
the word/name under observation.
Evidently, the method by which the secrets hidden in ism are unraveled may
be also applied to the Divine Names. Indeed, al-Tirmidhī offers another example
of the application of his method by ‘decoding’ the divine name wāḥid, the One
or the Single. In an earlier paragraph of ʿilm al-awliyāʾ, al-Tirmidhī defines the
subtle distinction between three divine names that at first sight seem syn-
onymous: wāḥid, fard and aḥad. Wāḥid, he says, alludes to [God who is] known
by mystical knowledge (al-maʿrūf bil-maʿrifa), fard, Singular, alludes to the
transcendence of God who is mystically known (al-tanzīh lil-maʿrūf), and aḥad
alludes to the transcendence of [God who is] qualified by attributes (al-tanzīh li
’l-mawṣūf).36 Then, further down, he offers an analysis of the name wāḥid:

One (wāḥid) is the foundation of [all] numbers. The name wāḥid is modeled
upon the form fāʿil … The root of the word is ḥ-d, two letters to which the w
has been added for reinforcement and completion, for a word is incomplete
unless it possesses three letters: a letter by which it begins, a letter by which
it is filled, and a letter by which it is sustained and comes to a halt … Thus,
the root of this word is, indeed, ḥāʾ and dāl … [The letter] ḥāʾ [derives]
from ḥayāt, life, and [the letter] dāl [derives] from dīn, religion, namely
‘reckoning’ (ḥisāb). ‘Reckoning’ and number have been placed at the
beginning [of all numbers]. The beginning of numbers is that which is the
cause of ‘life’ and its end is [what derives] from ‘reckoning’, hence: ḥd.37

In this somewhat nebulous illustration of his method al-Tirmidhī seems to be

alluding to the mystical knowledge that can be gleaned from deconstructing the
274   Language and hermeneutics
divine name wāḥid, One. When broken down to its radical components, this
name is found to combine the meanings of ‘life’ and ‘religion’ (dīn). Wāḥid is
the name of the number from which all other numbers stem; its radical conso-
nants point at once to ‘life’ as the very beginning of existing things and to ‘reli-
gion’ in the sense of ‘reckoning’ (ḥisāb) as their end. The name thus points to
the all-encompassing divine aspect that arches over the beginning and the end of
existence. Clearly, from the point of view of root-letters alone, the same inter-
pretation could be applied also to the name aḥad; however, al-Tirmidhī suggests
that, alongside the root, the ‘form’ upon which the name is modelled – in the
case of wāḥid this is fāʿil, the form of the active participle of the first verbal-
stem, which indicates an active agent – has also to be taken into account. Wāḥid
thus points to the dynamic, active aspect of God whereas aḥad refers to His
transcendence.38

KUN and God’s ‘perfect words’39

The imperative form kun, conveying the all-encompassing creative power of
God, also merits linguistic analysis. Faithful to his ‘deconstructive’ system,
al-Tirmidhī breaks the form down to its constituents in order to extract from
them its core meaning: the letter kāf, he writes in the opening chapter of
Nawādir al-uṣūl, stems from, or points to, God’s existence (kaynūna), while the
letter nūn points to His light (nūr).40 ‘Existence’ and ‘light’ are not mere seman-
tic ‘exponents’ of the acronym. These words, as well as the letters that stand for
them, sustain – and not merely represent – the fundamental features of ‘creation’
as such.41 The letters kāf and nūn, even when disjointed and divested of any
‘external’ meaning – let alone when combined to form the primordial existential
verb – carry within themselves the potency required for any creative act.42 No
wonder, therefore, that the efficacy of words of power – words which are
endowed with protective power – is associated with the divine logos.43
Kun, like ism and wāḥid, derives, according to al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, from a
two-letter root. Grammatically, therefore, it belongs to a category labelled ‘defi-
cient’ (manqūsāt).44 But, paradoxically, while this concept of ‘deficiency’ is the
construct of grammarians (ahl al-lugha) for whom linguistic wholeness is condi-
tioned by the existence of (at least) three root-letters, the so-called ‘deficient’
two-lettered kun, from a divine perspective, is labelled ‘perfect’ (tāmma), as in
Q. 6:116: “Perfect is the word (kalima) of thy Lord in truthfulness and justice; no
man can change His words (kalimātihi).”45 By extension, all formulae of power –
such as ‘Praise be to God’ (al-ḥamdu li ’llāh), ‘God is Great’ (Allāhu akbar) –
are labelled ‘perfect’ (al-kalimāt al-tāmmāt). They all stem, according to
al-Tirmidhī, from one primordial ‘perfect’ word – kun, Be! the word by which
creation came into existence:

The perfect ‘word’ of God [in the singular] or the perfect ‘words’ of God [in
the plural] convey one meaning. When one says, ‘God’s perfect word’, one
refers to the plurality [of words], and when one says ‘God’s perfect words’
 The power of words   275
one refers to the single [primordial] word from which, according to varying
situations and times, multiple words derived. This [single] perfect word is
God’s saying: innamā amruhu idhā arāda shayʾan an yaqūla lahu KUN
fa-yakūnu (Q. 36:82): “His command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it
‘Be’, and it is.” He has also said: idhā qaḍā amran fa-innamā yaqūlu lahu
KUN fa-yakūnu (Q. 2:117, 3:47, 19:35, 40:68) – “when He decrees a thing,
He but says to it ‘Be’, and it is.”46 By saying “His words” [in the plural] He
[has implied] that His word be dispersed in all things. For every decree and
every desire [for a thing] … has a word for that thing from our Lord, since
[it came about] through His saying: Be! This transpires from the following
ḥadīth qudsī transmitted by Abū Dharr in the name of the Prophet: “God
has said, ‘My favour is but a word and My punishment is but a word’
(innamā ʿaṭāʾī kalām wa-ʿadhābī kalām).”47

In essence, therefore, all that comes to be, by dint of being a ‘created’ eventuality,
relates to words, or a word, as its source of existence. Formulae of power in par-
ticular, made sacrosanct by scripture or by prophetic tradition, and uttered by men
in special circumstances of need, threat, or ritualistic repetition (as, for example,
before retiring to sleep) retain the original creative force of the divine fiat.48
That al-Tirmidhī assigns special significance to the ‘perfect word/s’ is sug-
gested by the fact that his Nawādir al-uṣūl – a voluminous collection of ‘rare’,
or ‘precious’, traditions – opens with it. The first chapter of the Nawādir al-uṣūl,
titled “On the protection from a scorpion’s bite and on the refuge [one finds] in
protective formulae”, revolves around traditions concerning the formula “I seek
protection by all of God’s perfect words from the evil that He has created
(aʿūdhu bi-kalimāti ’llah kullihā min sharri mā khalaqa).”49 “When a man seeks
protection by this word,” writes al-Tirmidhī, “it becomes for him a refuge and
he is protected from the evil of that against which he has sought protection.” He
goes on to explain:

When the believer becomes aware that nothing can be unless it has come
under [God’s] Decree and Ordinance (al-qaḍāʾ wal-qadar) and that [God’s]
Decree manifests itself through His saying Be! (kun), he extols this word
and his heart becomes attached to it. Even when he is desirous or fearful of
a thing, his heart (qalb) will yearn for His Will (mashīʾa) while the fuʾād
contemplates His Wish (irāda), his ear listens to the word kun, and his eye
beholds His Governance (tadbīr). Hence, when he says aʿūdhu bi-kalimati
’llah al-tāmma min sharri mā khalaqa, he becomes protected from the evil
of that which God has created and is [taken] in[to] God’s stronghold to
pasture in God’s sanctuary, secure and peaceful.50

Clearly, aʿūdhū bi-kalimati ’llāh al-tāmma is seen by al-Tirmidhī as an archetypal

formula from which all invocations, especially those starting with aʿūdhu bi-,
branch off. However, true to his unfailing differentiation between grades of purity
among God’s friends, here, too, he distinguishes between those who seek protection
276   Language and hermeneutics
in God’s words and those who rely on God alone, with no intermediaries. Basing
himself on the Qurʾānic narrative in which Abraham, when thrown into a burning
furnace, responds with ḥasbī ’llāh (“God suffices me”) to the angel Gabriel’s offer
of help (Q. 21:69), he sees in the latter a model for the ideal ‘friend’ who will
reject any help or protection if it be from an agent other than God:

This (i.e. Abraham’s response) is the fashion with which the ‘men of certi-
tude’ (ahl al-yaqīn) say, ‘God suffices me’, whereas the ‘mixed one’
(al-mukhallaṭ)51 falsifies [this saying] by his actions, since he becomes
attached to means and people … His saying ‘God suffices me’ is like the
saying of the ‘unifiers’ (al-muwaḥḥidūn), [namely,] the saying of the ‘men
of faith’ (ahl al-īmān) – not like the saying of those who have realized truth
(al-muḥaqqiqīn), the ‘men of purity and certitude’ (ahl al-nazāha
wal-yaqīn) …52
Seeking refuge in God (al-istīʿādha bi ‘llāh) means to attach oneself to
Him alone, whereas seeking refuge in God’s Word (al-istiʿādha bi-kali-
matihi) means to attach oneself to His governance (tadbīr), for this is how
He has [decreed to] govern, [namely], that things should [come to] be by the
Word.53

Seeking refuge in God from God

Al-Tirmidhī’s differentiation between two types of istiʿādha and his emphatic
assertion that, ultimately, the search for protection and refuge ends with God,
beg further consideration. That invocations, supplications, protective formulae,
and even prayers, especially non-canonical ones (duʿāʾ, munājāt), emerge from
a foreboding or an awareness of evil with which one is threatened, raises a theo-
logical problem: What domain does this threat or evil fall under? Does the
domain within which evil operates exist outside of Allāh’s Will and Decree?
Since this is not a viable option, it would entail asking Allāh’s help and favour
against something that is part of Allāh’s own making. From the perspective of a
theology that upholds the belief in complementary yet polar divine attributes,
this problem is not difficult to resolve: one asks to be granted refuge in God’s
compassionate attributes (forgiveness, forbearance) from His harsh ones (pun-
ishment, anger). However, to stop here would imply an outlook that is still con-
fined within a dualism of sorts. For mystics like al-Tirmidhī and like most, if not
all, Ṣūfīs – for whom all aspects of binarity, human or divine, are finally sub-
sumed within an overarching, undifferentiated Oneness – the petitioner, too,
even when practising istiʿādha to counteract any calamity, should be mindful
that the ultimate source of succour and refuge is a God to whose absolute decree
he surrenders. Hence, one should acknowledge that, ultimately, he is seeking
refuge in God from God. Such reflections, though not theologically formulated,
are evinced from the prophetic tradition with which al-Tirmidhī concludes the
first chapter of the Nawādir al-uṣūl and from his commentary thereon.54 According
to this tradition, the Prophet was told by Gabriel to repeat, when performing the
 The power of words   277
sujūd, the following formulae: “I take refuge in your forgiveness (ʿafw) from
your punishment (ʿiqāb)” – he sought refuge, explains al-Tirmidhī, in [Divine]
Forgiveness against [Divine] Punishment since they are contraries; “I seek
refuge in your forbearance (riḍā) from your anger (sukhṭ)” – riḍā, reiterates
al-Tirmidhī, is the opposite of sukhṭ. Then he (i.e. Muḥammad) says, “I take
refuge in You from You.” Meaning, he asks refuge in Him from Him for He has
no opposite (fa-’staʿādha bihi minhu li-annahu lā ḍidda lahu). This, explains
al-Tirmidhī, is [corroborated] by the saying, “There is no escape from You but
to You”, which explicates God’s dictate: “Therefore flee unto God!” (Q. 51:50) –
that is to say, flee from Him to Him.55
The notion of fleeing from God to God has found its way also into Medieval
Hebrew poetry: note, for example, the famous line by the Andalusian Jewish
poet Solomon b. Gabirol (d. c.1058): “And if Thou search out my sin, I shall flee
from Thee to Thee and hide myself from Thy wrath in Thy shadow.”56 As for
the Ṣūfī lore, the following is a saying attributed to Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī that
illustrates this very attitude:

Having beheld the world, I chose the world-to-come; having beheld the
world-to-come, I chose the Lord; having beheld the Lord, I chose fleeing.
Then I beheld fleeing and lo, it ended me with Him, so I retreated in shame
and have remained submissive.57

Visualizing and activating words: the contemplative

way of knowing
Mystical knowledge means to see things ‘as they really are’.58 It can also be said to
be the apprehension – by means of an inner seeing which is performed by the ‘eyes
of the heart’ – of the ‘lights’ that shine forth from things. The capacity to ‘know’ by
means of mystical contemplation is a special ability with which the friends of God
have been endowed. A thing is really known when its inner light is revealed. That
such knowledge can be attained at all is due to the fact that, in the beginning
(i.e. primordially, in the badʾ), it was planted by God in man’s heart. God moulded
man in a wondrous way (tarkīban ʿajīban), says al-Tirmidhī. He placed the know-
ledge of all names – that is to say, of all existing things – in man’s ‘heart’ and then
assigned the ‘chest’ to be the locus where words/names/entities can be ‘visualized’,
an act that he sometimes names taṣwīr. For the act of articulating names, taʿbīr,
seven organs were allocated in the area extending from the throat to the lips: the
throat, the uvula, the tongue, the [upper and lower] teeth and the two lips.
Al-Tirmidhī labels these organs ‘the letters’ instruments’ (adawāt al-ḥurūf).59 The
articulation of all twenty-eight letters – and some count twenty-nine60 – is carried
out by means of these seven instruments.61
For a word, say in prayer, or an invocation, to be effective, it has first to go
through a process of exteriorization: it has to be drawn out of the heart (qalb),
where it resides as an innate hidden secret (sirr maknūn), into the chest (ṣadr).
There, its ‘light’ (nūr) or ‘form’ (ṣūra) or ‘content’ (maʿnā) may become manifest
278   Language and hermeneutics
to the eyes of the fuʾād, that outer layer of the heart (qalb) which, in
al-Tirmidhī’s system, is its ‘seeing’ part. Concurrently with this ‘seeing’, the
word is articulated in one, or in several, of the instrumental organs enumerated
above. But the articulation alone cannot produce the required effect. In order to
become effective, it must be coupled with ‘visualization’. Without allowing its
inner light to be displayed and seen by the eyes of the heart, a word in prayer or
in a protective formula cannot become actively efficacious.62
In The Aims of Prayer (Kitāb al-ṣalāt wa-maqāṣidihā), al-Tirmidhī is asked
to explain the fact, to which he has previously exposed his interlocutor, that
“every word has a light”. This is his explanation:

A spoken word is worthy when it comes [together] with the heart’s visuali-
zation [of it], while the chest is empty and wide open and the eyes of the
fuʾād glow in the chest with their innate light; that is to say, with the light of
being alive with God. Then, [seeing] the spoken words arranged according
to their ranks in the chest, he [= the reciter of the words] comes to
know their meanings. When he utters the words whilst the fuʾād is visualizing
their meanings, their lights burst out and fill up the chest. Then, by grasping
the meanings, the light of the intellect (ʿaql ) shines forth. The spoken words
thus ascend to God together with these lights. Words are containers
(qawālib) and the lights are the stuff with which these containers are filled
(ḥashw).63

It appears that with this physio-mystical terminology, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī

offers a precise description of a practice to be followed in the pursuit of an effi-
cacious language-based ritual. In the performance of this ritual, three functions
must become synchronized: the external function of articulation carried out by
the ‘instruments of speech’ (adawāt al-ḥurūf); the inner function of introspec-
tion and visualization of the ‘lights’ contained in the articulated words; and the
mental function of cognizing them semantically.

Mystical ‘seeing’
The heart (qalb), as we have seen, is the locus where mystical knowledge is
stored. It is located within the chest (ṣadr) in which also the lower-self, the nafs,
resides – al-Tirmidhī labels the chest “the courtyard of the heart and the lower-
self” (sāḥat al-qalb wal-nafs),64 All inner organs in al-Tirmidhī’s system are
vessels or containers (qawālib). But whereas the heart contains lights and spir-
itual energies, the lower-self contains lusts and appetites (shahawāt). It is this
juxtaposition of a heart filled with enlightened knowledge and devout inspiration
and a lower-self filled with turbid appetites and lustful inclination which makes
the chest the battlefield for fierce encounters between these two antithetical inner
functions. At the same time, the chest is also the arena upon which the images,
or forms, of all that is produced by either the qalb or the nafs are reflected. It is
from the chest that these psycho-spiritual reflections ‘exit’ into the external
 The power of words   279
organs of the body and are executed there as acts. The name for chest, ṣadr,
exhibits this ‘exit’ etymologically: “the chest is named ṣadr [= the place of
‘exit’] since from it things exit to the organs (innamā summiya ṣadran li-anna
‘l-umūr minhu taṣduru ilā ‘l-arkān).”65
The reflections in the chest of the inner activities of both heart and lower-self
are observed by the eyes of the fuʾād, the ‘seeing’ layer of the heart. But
whereas spiritual things that are stored in the heart emit lights, the appetites and
desires that are stored in the lower-self emit smoke and a cloudy mist. These
block the vision of the fuʾād: when the chest is clear, visions of the divine realm
(malakūt) are displayed in front of the eyes of the fuʾād. When the chest is filled
with the clouds and smoke of desires, the heart is veiled, and it loses access to
mystical knowledge.
In the following passage, condensed from his “The Training of the Self”
(Kitāb al-riyāḍa), al-Tirmidhī offers one of his typical descriptions of the organs
and functions involved in the process of mystical ‘seeing’:

[God] placed within man’s interior a hollow morsel … its inner part is the
qalb, and its outer part is the fuʾād … Then He fixed for the fuʾād two eyes
and two ears and a gateway to the chest, and he made the chest the court-
yard of this house. […]
Then God singled out the believers by [conferring on them] the light of
the Intellect (ʿaql). This He placed within the brain. In order that the rays of
its light may shine in front of the eyes of the fuʾād He fixed for it a gate
[which opens] from the brain to the chest. [By means of this light] the fuʾād
discerns right from wrong and regulates man’s affairs. Within the qalb God
placed the light of Oneness. […] The qalb is made alive by God and [then]
the eyes of the fuʾād open. The light of Oneness, through the gate of the
qalb, illuminate the chest; the eyes of the fuʾād contemplate it thanks to the
light of life which is inherent in them. Then [man] affirms God’s Oneness
and knows Him. […]
When the chest is filled with the cloud of anger the eyes of the fuʾād are
[covered] in it, the rays of the Intellect are cut off and the cloud stands
between the fuʾād and the Intellect. The heart of the infidel then falls into
the darkness of unbelief. […] Then [God] revived the heart by the Light
of Life after it had been a hollow morsel of flesh; and when He revived it
by the Light of Life, the heart moved and opened the eyes that were
placed in the fuʾād. Then He guided him by His Light, the Light of
Oneness, and the Light of the intellect. When the light shone in his
chest, the heart became firmly attached to it and by this light [man] knew
God. […]66

The breath: ‘blowing’ on hands

Chapter 246 of the Nawādir al-uṣūl, titled “What one says before retiring to
sleep”, is the platform from which al-Tirmidhī discusses the significance of the
280   Language and hermeneutics
breath for the efficacy of prophylactic formulae. The chapter opens with four
variants of a tradition, all four reported in the name of ʿĀʾisha, according to
which the Prophet, before retiring to bed, used to recite three verses, jointly
labelled al-muʿawwidhāt: “Say, He is God, One” (Q. 112:1), “Say, I take refuge
with the Lord of the daybreak” (Q. 113:1) and “Say, I take refuge with the Lord
of men” (Q. 114:1). This recitation was combined with the following ritual: The
Prophet would bring his open palms together, would ‘blow’ (yanfuthu) on them
and would then rub with them (yamsaḥu) the exposed, or the accessible, parts of
his body. He would repeat this ritual three times. According to one of the vari-
ants, the Prophet performed this ritual when he was ill, and this goes also for his
last and fatal illness. ʿĀʾisha said that when he became incapacitated by illness,
she would do it for him saying, “Give me your hands and I shall rub you with
them for the blessing [they contain].”67
What is the meaning of this ritualistic blowing on hands and the rubbing of
parts of the body with them and in what way are these acts instrumental in ren-
dering the protective verses effective? By ‘blowing’ (nafth) and rubbing (masḥ),
explains al-Tirmidhī, the blessing contained in the verses reaches the entire
body: “For it behooves him who recites these Sūras that their light and blessing
should reach his body. He cannot make it reach it in any other way.”68 But first,
and prominently, it is through the breath that this blessing is transmitted. For
there are two types of breathing, says al-Tirmidhī. There is the breath that comes
from the spirit (rūḥ) and there is the breath that comes from the lower-self
(nafs). The two can be easily distinguished: the former is cool, while the latter is
hot. It is by means of ‘blowing’ – when the air is breathed out through the lips –
that the air emanating from the spirit spreads the blessing of the protective
verses and words throughout the body. This cool, spiritual breath cleanses the
body outwardly and inwardly and, in doing so, prepares the soul (nafs [!]) to
ascend to God during sleep.69 Here is the explanation in al-Tirmidhī’s own
words:

When a man says ‘bf’70 the air emerges cool from the coolness of the spirit;
when he says ‘hah’ the air emerges warm from [the warmth] of the lower-
self (nafs).71 The former is [named] ‘blowing’ (nafth), the latter is [named]
‘exhalation’ (nafkha). The spirit and the nafs are endowed with life which
the body employs in movement. The spirit is heavenly and the nafs earthly.
The spirit is fashioned upon obedience whereas the nafs is fashioned upon
appetites. When [a man] joins his lips, the spirit is squeezed in its abode.
Then, when he lets it out, cool air exits through his lips. This is [called]
‘blowing’ (nafth). [However], when he opens his mouth [in breathing] the
nafs is squeezed, and when [the air is] let out, it exits as hot wind. […] By
means of blowing into the palms, the spirit carries to them a puff of air that
has encountered the lights of these words with which the chest has been
illumined and ignited […]72 For each of these words, as well as each of their
letters, is endowed with light. The [distinction between different] grades of
‘blowing’ depends on the light of the heart and the measure of the [inner]
 The power of words   281
knowledge of these [sacred] words that the blower [has attained].73 When
one performs this bodily (bi-jasadihi) while retiring to bed he is like a man
bathing in the purest and best of water.74

The above description and interpretation makes it obvious that, for al-Tirmidhī,
the act of ‘blowing’ complements and reinforces the contemplative act spoken
of above. Visualizing with the eyes of the fuʾād the ‘lights’ of the words and let-
ters, when these are reflected upon the empty chest, allows for attaining the
­mystical knowledge that makes these words effective. Then, emitting through
the lips the cool breath that comes from the spirit – that heavenly, obedient and
fast-moving ‘energy’ which resides in the head – helps in transferring the bless-
ing and power of these ‘lights’ to all available parts of the body. The physical
body together with its subtler, inner parts is thus envisaged as a coordinated,
complex unit. With this body–psyche complex man is called upon to perform
several ritualistic acts: to pronounce with his tongue the sacred formulae and
verses, to ‘blow’ through his lips on his open hands, to rub with his hands over
exposed parts of his body, and to visualize with the eyes of his heart the inner
‘lights’ of words and letters. All these acts prepare for the ascension of the
­purified soul to the heavenly Throne, in front of which it will prostrate, thus
completing the multi-layered ritual by performing the ultimate act of submission
in God’s proximity.

The ascent of perfect words

The soul, according to al-Tirmidhī, is not the only entity to make the ascent to
the divine realms. Also words and letters, when purely pronounced and when
mystically contemplated, ascend to God. In The Aims of Prayer he writes,

When one recites the Qurʾān [one should bear in mind that] every word has
an ‘external visual appearance’ (tarāʾin ẓāhir) and [that] every letter in the
word has an ‘inner visual appearance’ (tarāʾin bāṭin). By this [inner] ‘visual
appearance’ his heart travels to the Master of Wisdom (fa-rakiba qalbuhu
bi-dhālika ’1-tarāʾī ilā waliyy al-ḥikma), for letters are the vehicle (markab)
of the [visualized] ‘meanings’ which the word contains.75

Al-Tirmidhī describes the ascent of sacred words with the rich vocabulary and
the poetic imagery that remind one of the Hekhalot literature. Indeed,
al-Tirmidhī’s corpus is replete with passages that raise comparative questions,
especially vis-à-vis Jewish mystical texts of Late Antiquity (see, in particular,
Appendix, no. 8).76 These, however, are beyond the scope of the present paper.77
Primary among the perfect words is, no doubt, the lā ilāha illā ’llāh, known,
according to the Prophet’s amplification of Qurʾān 48:26, as kalimat al-taqwā,
‘The Word of Godfearing’.78 The following passage which describes the ascent
of this sacred formula is culled from a collection of short texts titled “Esoteric
Questions” (al-masā’il al-maknūna):
282   Language and hermeneutics
God has said, “O believers, fear God, and speak words hitting the mark, and
He will set right your deeds for you and will forgive you your sins”
(Q. 33:70–1). God created man, then He bestowed His grace upon the
people [who are under] His compassion (raḥma) and He revived their
hearts. And He gave them light and opened the eyes of their hearts to His
light, and by this light they contemplated Him and placed their confidence
in Him. And they made this light radiate from their chests by a formula
(kalima), which is made of letters (or: syllables, ḥurūf), each of which has a
[spiritual] meaning. This formula is lā ilāha illā ’llāh, each letter of which
has power and light. When it is pronounced by the mouth [of my servant]
the air of the aspirated breath comes forth with a sound that reaches the
ears, but everything else is obscured from sight.
When this formula ascends to God and enters the gates of heaven, like
lightning it expands in the air to the right and to the left, and its rays and
sparks pierce through the sphere of heaven and through the sphere of
ʿilliyyūn79 and ascends to the column [supporting] the Throne. It rends open
the heavenly veils till it stands in front of the Compassionate One at the
halting place (mawqif) from which God bestowed His grace upon His
servant. From this place God accepts man’s goodness and forgives his
wrongdoing, from here He protects him, and from here He brings him close
to Himself. He who has the greatest portion of God’s acceptance, forgive-
ness, and protection, has [also] the greatest portion of light in his chest.80

Finally, all these acts are rewarded with imminent success and blessing. That
these are bestowed on both soul and body during the lifetime of the performer of
this ritual is made clear in the following passage:

Whoever performs this act regularly upon retiring to bed sees an evident
benefit in his body and in the rest of his affairs. For the soul, by reading this
Sūra [!], ascends to God in her sleep blessed, purified, cleansed and free of
idolatry. In this form, having bathed in these [purifying] things (i.e.
‘words’), she prostrates beneath the Throne. There she attains God’s gifts
and generosity, which she takes back to the body as a bountiful goodness
and a healing plenty.81

Conclusion
To highlight the distinctiveness of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s linguistic vision, I
shall record in broad headings the principles upon which it is based:

1 Words are not human constructs but God-given – language is part of the
divine governance and order by which human cognition of created things is
enabled. The word that names a thing is closely linked to the essence, or
‘core’, of that thing, hence, to know the name of a thing is to know the thing
itself. The sounds or letters that make up a word, accessed by external
 The power of words   283
sensory organs (tongue, lips, teeth), are containers (qawālib) of subtle sub-
stances, or energies, known as ‘lights’ or ‘meanings’, which cannot be
directly accessed by the sensory organs.
2 Mystical knowledge is the knowledge of the ‘lights’ that words and ‘things’
contain – hence, mystical knowledge is the knowledge of ‘the thing in
itself’; it can equally be said to be the knowledge of the essence, or core, of
a word or a thing.
3 Mystical knowledge is attained through an inner faculty of ‘seeing’ by
which the ‘lights’ contained in words and things are accessed. For this
faculty to function, man, in addition to his external sensory organs, has been
divinely endowed with subtle inner organs.
4 Inner ‘seeing’ takes place in the cavity of the chest, but only when the chest
is empty and clear of obstructions. The main obstruction to inner ‘seeing’
comes from a turbid, cloudy energy, or ‘wind’, emanating from ‘desires’
and earthly attractions.
5 Linguistic elements become empowered by inner ‘seeing’: when a word, or
a sacred formula, is intrinsically ‘seen’ and ‘known’, its inner ‘lights’ are
externalized, and it becomes powerful and efficacious. It is then said to have
‘ascended’ to God and to have been pronounced in front of God’s Throne.
The process, or ritual, by which linguistic formulae become empowered,
involves the coordination of the practitioner’s bodily, psychic, mental and
spiritual faculties. It is empowered language, language that has ascended to
the Throne, that attracts the divine response and that brings the sought for
rescue, remedy, and blessing.

These principles, inasmuch as they lie at the foundation of al-Tirmidhī’s mys-

tical linguistics, are also at the foundation of his teaching concerning ‘holy
men’. Indeed, for him the phenomenon of wilāya is bound up with – in fact, it is
defined by – the mystical knowledge that stems from the inner ‘seeing’ of words
and names.82 It is by means of this ‘seeing’ that the man of God, the walī, can
gain knowledge of the essences of ‘things’ – be they terrestrial, psychological,
or celestial; be they primordial, eschatological or present. Language and wilāya
are, therefore, intrinsically bound up. And from this bond stems another nexus:
that of existence (ontology), knowledge (epistemology), and being; namely, for
the walī, the knowledge of existence and existents is not distinguished from his
state of being. He is, therefore, he knows, and the higher in the hierarchy of
being he is, the clearer and truer his knowledge of ‘existence’ becomes. Equally,
the truer his knowledge, the more potent the words he employs.

Appendix
1  On reciting Sūrat al-ikhlāṣ (Q. 112) – Nawādir, Ch. 93
In the name of ʿUthmān, may Allāh be pleased with him: One day [when I was
sick] the Prophet came to visit me. He said: “I ask that ‘God, the One, the Most
284   Language and hermeneutics
Elevated, who does not beget nor is begotten, whom nothing equals’ may protect
you from the evil that you find [yourself in].” He repeated it seven times, then,
before departing, he said:

You will find nothing that can protect you better than this; when using it, one
is asking [God’s] protection by means of [a formula] that equals a third of the
Qurʾān [and that is] in accord with Allāh who is pleased with it for Himself.

2  On the efficacy of Sūrat Yā Sīn (Q. 36) – Nawādir, Ch. 253

Muḥammad b. Marwān reported in the name of Abū Jaʿfar: “He who finds spite
(sawʾa) in his heart, let him write Yā Sīn with saffron in a bowl, then drink it.”
In the name of Hilāl b. al-Ṣalt on Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq who said: The Prophet said:

Sūrat Yā Sīn is named in the Torah almuʿimma. He was asked: What does
al-muʿimma mean? He said: For he who recites it, it joins together
(tuʿimmu) the goodness of this world, it wards off its tribulations and pro-
tects him against the horrors of the next. It is also called the Protective and
Provider (al-mudāfiʿa al-qāḍiya): it protects the reciter from all things and
provides him with all his needs. Reciting it equals twenty pilgrimages; lis-
tening to it equals [the charity] of one thousand dinārs [spent] for God’s
sake. When one writes it then drinks it, it gives his body a thousand cures
and a thousand lights and a thousand [measures] of certitude, blessing, and
mercy, and he is spared all kinds of malice and illness.

In the name of Anas: The Prophet said: “Everything has a heart and the heart of
the Qurʾān is Yā Sīn. He who recites it, it equals to having recited the Qurʾān ten
times.” [Abū ʿAbd Allāh explains:] As the heart is the leader of the body, so Yā
Sīn is the leader of the rest of the Sūras and it embraces the whole of the Qurʾān.
The Book of God contains one Sūra that is named Mighty (al-ʿazīza) – he who
recites it is named Noble (al-sharīf). On the Day of Resurrection, it will intercede for
its reciter more than (for the tribes of) Rabīʿa and Muḍar. This is Sūrat Yā Sīn.83

3  The Prophet’s prayer – Nawādir, Ch. 80

The Prophet used to pray thus: “Oh God, may you keep me away from despic-
able deeds, qualities, appetites, and ailments (allāhumma, jannibnī munkarāt
al-aʿmāl wal-akhlāq wal-ahwāʾ wal-adwāʾ)”. And also thus: “I take refuge in
You from the calamities of time and from unforeseen malice (aʿūdhu bika min
bawāʾiq al-dahr wa-fajʾati al-niqam).”

4  Al-ḥamdu li ’llāh – Nawādir Ch. 171

The formula ‘Praise be to God’ (al-ḥamdu li-’llāh) is one of ‘the abiding right-
eous [words] (al-bāqiyāt al-ṣāliḥāt) alluded to in Q. 18: 46 (also Q. 19: 76). In a
tradition reported in the name of Anas, the Prophet said:
 The power of words   285
He who is given the world and then is given this ‘word’ (kalima) and pro-
nounces it, [will find that] it is superior to the whole world, as the world
perishes, and the word abides.84

5  “The five words” – Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 160–1

Man was given five words (kalimāt) [that act] as translators (tarjama) of the
treasures of Oneness (tawḥīd) – they are: subḥāna ’llāh, al-ḥamdu li ’llāh, lā
ilāha illā ’llāh, Allāhu akbar and tabāraka ’llāh. [Man was given these words]
so that his tongue should pronounce [the Oneness of God] and so that, through
his tongue, the lights [contained in them] be ignited.85

6  The words of pledge (kalimāt al-ʿahd) – Nawādir, Ch. 174

Concerning the formula that is pronounced as an affirmation of the worshipper’s
pledge (ʿahd) of faithfulness to God. It is said to have the following result: he
who recites it at the end of the ritual prayer will be written by an angel in a spe-
cial sealed book and be reckoned in the Day of Resurrection as one of the
People of the Pledge (ahl al-ʿuhūd). By this writ, he will be protected in the day
of reckoning. This is what he should recites in order to make a pledge:

Allāhumma fāṭir al-samawāt wal-arḍ ʿālim al-ghayb wal-shahāda

al-raḥmān al-raḥīm innī aʿhadu ilayka fī hādhihi ‘l-ḥayāt al-dunyā annaka
anta ‘llāh lā ilāha illā anta waḥdaka lā sharīka laka wa-anna Muḥammadan
ʿabduka wa-rasūluka fa-lā takilnī ilā nafsī fa-innaka in takilnī ilā nafsī
tuqarribnī min al-sharr wa-tubāʿidnī mina ‘l-khayr wa-innī lā athiqu illā
bi-raḥmatika fa-’jʿal raḥmataka lī ʿahdan ʿindaka tuʾaddīhi ilā yawm
al-qiyāma innaka lā tukhlifu ’1-mīʿād.
Oh, God, Creator of heavens and earth, He who knows the hidden and the
manifest, the Merciful the Compassionate. I submit to you my pledge [that]
throughout this life [I shall affirm] that you are God and that there is no god
but You alone with no partner, and that Muḥammad is Your servant and
messenger. May You not submit me to my lower-self, for, if You submit me
to my lower-self, You set me close to evil and far off from goodness. I do
not trust [anything] but Your Mercy; keep, therefore, Your Mercy with You
as a pledge to be brought out for me on the Day of Resurrection, for You do
not go back on your promise.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh [al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī] explains that he who pronounces

these words adorns himself with a pledge of complete trust in God. He uses
these words throughout his earthly life as a deposit entrusted to God, for he
places his hope and expectation in Him alone. Hence God in His generosity will
not fail him. This is confirmed by Q. 19:87: “… having no power of intercession
save these who have taken with the All-Merciful covenant”.
286   Language and hermeneutics
Abū ʿAbd Allāh goes on to explain that to take a pledge of sincerity and
faithfulness concerning the lā ilāha illā ’llāh means that, in relation to all
worldly or otherworldly things, the worshipper’s heart will not rely upon any-
thing but God.86

7  Words of deliverance, forgiveness and

instruction – Nawādir Ch. 177
ʿAbd Allāh b. Jaʿfar said: The messenger of God used to say: “Teach your dying
[to recite] lā ilāha illā ’llāh al-ḥalīm al-karīm; subḥāna ’llāhi rabbi ’l-samawāt
al-sabʿ wa-rabbi al-ʿarsh al-ʿaẓīm; al-ḥamdu li-’llāhi rabbi ’l-ʿālamīn.” He was
asked: And what is its effect (literally: how is it) on the living? He said: Better
by far.87
Ahl al-bayt name these formulae “words of deliverance” and they pronounce
them in supplication when they face calamities and misfortunes. It was reported
in the name of ʿAlī, may Allāh honour his face, that he had transmitted [the fol-
lowing] in the name of the Prophet: “Have I not taught you words that, if you
recite them, your sins will be absolved, and you will be forgiven? [These are]

lā ilāha illā ’llāhu ’l-ʿaẓīm;

lā ilāha illā ’llāhu ’l-ḥalīm al-karīm;
subḥāna ’llāhi rabbi ’l-samawāt wa-rabbi ’l-ʿarsh al-ʿaẓīm;
al-ḥamdu li ’llāhi rabbi ’l-ʿālamīn.

8  The ascent of lā ilāha illā ’llāh – ʿIlm al- awliyāʾ, 134–5

… la ilāha illā ’llāh – a formula that, if it were to carry the heavens and the
earths, it would crush them into thin dust; a formula whose sound adorns the
earth; a sound in which the hills and valleys and deserts and [open] spaces take
pride …; a formula which pierces through the celestial air, which pierces through
the heavenly seas, which pierces through the rows of Cherubim (karūbiyyūn)
and the rows of Spiritual Beings (rūḥāniyyūn) which pierces through the seas of
fire; which pierces through the seas of darkness; which pierces through the seas
of snow and the seas of hail; a formula which pierces through the veils of revela-
tions and the veils of holiness and the veils of lightning and the veils of rubies …
and the veils of precious stones, and the veils of pearls, and the veils of flame –
it does not stop piercing through one veil after another till it reaches the veil of
awe (mahāba). A formula that pierces through all these veils and through the
spaces and deserts of light [that lie] between them till it stands in front of our
Lord, the Lord of Power (rabb al-ʿizza) and its voice and echo reverberate
around the Throne. A formula invested with power and authority with which it
pierces through these veils, with which it traverses through these open spaces
faster than a flash of lightning, faster than the twinkle of the eye, till it stands
with a roar and a sound in its place by the Throne of the Merciful One. And
when the angels hear this roaring sound, they raise their voices around the
 The power of words   287
Throne, all the angels who surround the Throne and the angel whose name is
Spirit (rūḥ) [!] They raise their voices in glorification, praise, jubilation, sanctifi-
cation and supplication. They say: Praise be to Thee, who is sublime in Power,
who is sublime in Majesty, who is sublime in Exaltation. There is no God but
Thee. Forgive this one who pronounces [this formula]. Protect him from the trib-
ulation of Hell and carry him into the Garden which You have allotted for him –
for him and for his fathers and spouses and offspring, for You art Mighty and
Wise.88

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 27 (2002): 204–44.
  2 The following is a selective list of relevant studies on ‘language’ in Jewish mysti-
cism: Moshe Idel, “Reification of Language in Jewish Mysticism”, in Mysticism and
Language, ed. Steven Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 42–79;
Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1990), passim; Moshe Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics in Abulafia (New
York: State University of New York Press, 1989); Moshe Idel, “On Talismanic Lan-
guage in Jewish Mysticism”, Diogenes 170 (1995): 23–41; Moshe Idel, “Le Langage
Mystique: de la Cosmogonie a l’Epistemologie”, Revue de I’Histoire des Religions
213 (1996): 379–84 (note also other papers in this volume); N. Janowitz, The Poetics
of Ascent: Theories of Language in a Rabbinic Ascent Text (Albany, NY: SUNY,
1989); Aryeh Kaplan (trans. and ann.), Sefer Yetzira: The Book of Creation in Theory
and Practice (York Beach: Weiser, 1997); Y. Liebes, Ars Poetica in Sefer Yetsira
(Tel Aviv: Schocken Publishers, 2000) (in Hebrew); E. Lipiner, The Metaphysics of
the Hebrew Alphabet (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) (in Hebrew); G. Scholem, “The
Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism”, in On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism
(New York: Schocken Books, 1960), 32–86; G. Scholem, “The Name of God and the
Linguistic Theory of the Kabbalah”, Diogenes 79–80 (1972): 59–80 and 164–94. For
the numerous studies on Sefer Yezira, see Y. Liebes, Bibliography for the Course on
Sefer Yezira: Its Sources and Commentators (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University,
c.1995) (unpublished).
  3 See, for example, Ibn al-ʿArabī’s warning in the second chapter of al-futūḥāt al-mak-
kiyya, ed. ʿUthmān Yahya, Vol. 3 (Cairo: al Hayʾa al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma lil-kitāb,
1972), 208 §175a: “In itself, this is a noble science, but it is rare to [practise it] safely;
therefore, it is best to refrain from pursuing it”; note also his forthright caution
against the magical overtones and application of the science of letters – Kitāb al-mīm
wal-wāw wal-nūn, in Rasāʾil (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiya, 2001 [1997]), 110f.;
also Denis Gril, “La science des lettres (analyse du chapitre 2 des al-Futūḥāt al-mak-
kiyya)”, in Ibn ʿArabī, Les Illumination de la Mecque: Textes choisis presentes et tra-
duits (Paris: Sindbad, 1988), 406.
  4 See, for example, al-Niffarī, Kitāb al-mawāqif, trans. A.J. Arberry (Cambridge: Trus-
tees of the “E. J.W. Gibb Memorial”, 1987 [1935]), 90 (Arabic text) and 92 (Eng.
trans.) mawqif no. 55:
Set the letters behind thee, otherwise thou will not prosper, and it will take thee
unto itself …; I am not known by letter, nor by what is in letter, nor by what is of
letter …; The beginning of authorities is, that thou shouldst have gnosis without
expression.
For the topic of ‘saying’ the ‘unsayable’, see M.A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994); also Annemarie Schimmel, “Letter
288   Language and hermeneutics
Symbolism in Ṣūfī Literature”, in Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1976). Appendix I, 411. Note Liebes’ comments
on “rest” (menuha) and “withholding” (belima) in the creative act according to Sefer
Yetsira and other Jewish sources – see Ars Poetica, Ch. 20, 149ff.
  5 Cf., for example, K.C. Ryding, “Alchemical Phonology: Science, Sound and Mysticism
in the Arab Middle Ages”, in History of Linguistics, ed. K.R. Jankowski (Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1995), 1f. The following is a list of selected studies on, and references to,
esoteric aspects of the Arabic language: T. Canaan, The Decipherment of Arab Talis-
mans (Damascus: Syrian Orphanage Press, 1938–1939); Henry Corbin, History of
Islamic Philosophy (London and New York: Kegan Paul International and The Insti-
tute of Ismaili Studies, 1993), 75f., 144ff. et passim; E. Doutté, Magie et Religion
dans l’Afrique du Nord (Algiers: Adolphe Jourdan, 1909). Ch. 3, 103ff.; C.A. Gilis,
Le Coran et la Fonction d’Hermès: Traduction et présentation d’un commentaire
d’Ibn Arabi sur le 36 attestations coranique de I’Unité divine (Paris: Les éditions de
l’Oeuvre, 1984); T. Fahd, La Divination Arabe; Études Religieuses, Sociologiques et
Forlklorique sur le Milieu Natif de I’Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 215ff. et passim; T.
Fahd, “Ḥurūf (‘ilm al-)”, EI2, Vol. 3, 595; D. Gril, “La science des lettres (analyse du
chapitre 2 des al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya)”, in Ibn ʿArabī, Les Illumination de la
Mecque. Textes choisis presentes et traduits Michel Chodkiewicz and W.C. Chittick
(Paris: Sindbad, 1988), 385–438; P. Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyān: Contribution a
l’histoire des idees scientifiques dans l’Islam, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Institut Français
d’Archeologie Orientale, 1943): “Jabir et la science grecque”, 1942 (reprint 1986); P.
Lory, “La mystique des lettres en terre d’Islam”, Annales de Philosophie 17 (1996):
101–9; P. Lory, “La magie des lettres dans le Shams al-maʿārif d’al Būnī”, Bulletin
d’Etudes orientales, 39–40 (1987–1989): 97–111; D.B. Macdonald, “Djafr”, EI2, s.v.;
L. Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique Musulmane
(Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1954), 98ff. et passim; Paul Nwyia, Exégèse
coranique et langage mystique: nouvel essai sur le lexique technique des mystiques
Musulmans (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970), 164ff. et passim; K.C. Ryding, “Alchem-
ical phonology”, 83–92; A. Schimmel, “The Primordial Dot – Some Thoughts about
Sufi Letter Mysticism”, JSAI 9 (1987): 350–6; Schimmel, “Letter Symbolism in Ṣūfī
Literature”, in Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Appendix I, 411–25; G. Vajda, “Les
lettres et les sons de la langue arabe d’apres Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī”, Arabica 8 (1961):
113–30; H.A. Winkler, Siegel und Charaktere in der muhammedanischen Zauberei
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1930); Y. Zoran, “Magic, Theurgy and the Science of
Letters in Islam and their parallels in Jewish Literature”, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish
Folklore 18 (1996): 19–62 (in Hebrew).
  6 For the practice of placing magic bowls, or invoking the spirits, at the four corners of
a house in Mesopotamia in Late Antiquity, see J.A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incanta-
tion Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia, PA: The University Museum, 1913), 133, Bowl
4: “you are charmed and sealed in each one of the four corners of his house (min
arbaʿ zavīt bētē)”; see also Montgomery’s “Introduction”, 40ff.; also, C.H. Gordon,
“Two Magic Bowls in Teheran”, Orientalia 20 (1951): 307 (The Aramaic Bowl):
“Vanquished are the black-arts and mighty spells … [and] the enchanting women
away from the four borders of the house (min arbaʿ a meṣrē bētē)”; also, J. Naveh
and Sh. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls. Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity
(Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1987), 200–1, bowl 13: “They sprinkled fat in the
four corners …”; also, J. Naveh, and Sh. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae.
Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1993),
137–38, bowl 25. I am grateful to Dr Dan Levene for these references. See also Dan
Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls: Incantation Texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late
Antiquity (London: Kegan Paul, 2009); Tzvi I. Abusch. “Cultures in Contact: Ancient
Near Eastern and Jewish Magic”, in A Handbook of Jewish Magic, eds Siam Bhayro
and Ortal-Paz Saar (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
 The power of words   289
  7 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 255, 338 [= ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
ʿUmayra, Vol. 2 (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1992), 251]; also, al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr
fī al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1411/1990), 574. All
Qurʾānic translations in this chapter are Arberry’s, The Koran Interpreted.
  8 See also [n. 17]; on Ubayy, see al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, eds Sh.
Al-Arnāwūt and H. al-Asad, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-risala, 1402/1982),
389–402 (No. 82).
  9 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Chapter 255, titled “On the Verse of the
Throne and what is guarded by it”, 337–8 [= Beirut, 1992, Vol. 2, 249–52];
Wensinck, Concordance, Vol. 8, 372; also, al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 391.
For words of power taught to Ubayy by the Prophet, see Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī,
Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya,
1997), 250ff.; see also al-Suyuṭī, Al-Durr al-manthūr, Vol. 1, 572 and cf. 576, where
the reply is attributed to Abū Dharr and to Abū Umāma; for the protective efficacy of
the “two verses with which God concluded Sūrat al-baqara” according to the com-
panion al-Nuʿmān b. Bashīr, see Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn b. Masʿūd al-Farrāʾ
[= Ibn al-Farrāʾ], Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ, trans. James Robson, Vol. 2 (Lahore: Sh.
Muhammad Ashraf, 1963), 454–5; cf. Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr fī ʿilm al-tafsīr, ed.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdī, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1422/2001), 264–5.
For the ‘ascent’ of letters and words of power, see Appendix, no. 8. For further
­discussion and references, see Y. Zoran, “Magic”, 54ff.
10 On ism Allāh al-aʿẓam, see D. Gimaret, Les noms divins en Islam: éxegèse lexi-
cographique et theologique (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 1988), 85–94 (for primary
and secondary literature, see ibid., 9–11 and 15–35).
11 See al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 17 in Böwering, Mystical Vision, 49; for al-Tustarī’s standing
with regard to ʿilm al-ḥurūf, see Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence
in Classical Islam: The Qurʾānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī
(d. 283/896) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 54, 80; for another mystical experience of
this verse, see Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl, ed. and trans. F. Meier (Wiesbaden:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 1957), 77 §159: wa-ghibtu fa-raʾaytu samāʾan dhāt kawākib
­fa-fahimtu min kawākibihā al-Qurʾān āyata al-kursī ka-dhālika – there follows a
­pictorial depiction after which come the words bi-lā ḥarf wa-lā kalima: “I lost con-
sciousness and saw a starry sky and from its stars I understood the Qurʾān, the verse
of the Throne … without letters and with no word”; cf. al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, ed.
ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kayyālī, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1426/2005),
Ch. 5, 22; for the assertion, attributed to Abū Umāma, that God’s Supreme Name is,
indeed, Allāh lā ilāha illā huwa al-ḥayy al-qayyūm, see al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr
al-manthūr, Vol. 1, 576; cf. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, Vol. 2 (Beirut:
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1981), 11; for a miraculous use of āyat al-kursī in early
Shīʿism, see J. Loebenstein, “Miracles in Shīʿī Thought: A Case-Study of the Mir-
acles Attributed to Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq”, Arabica 50 (2003): 199–244. For the use
of āyat al-kursī as taʿwīdh (talisman, charm), see Khalid M. Malik, ʿAyn al-miftāḥ
(an electronic publication: www.meem.jreeuk.com/Taweez.html).
12 For the talismanic properties of the Qurʾānic text, see Constant Hamès, “L’usage
­talismanique du Coran”, Revue de l’histoire des religions 218 (2001): 83–95.
13 Aʿūdhu bi-kalimāti ‘llāh al-tāmmāt min sharr mā khalaqa (Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 1
[= Vol. 1, 23, l. 12].
14 uʿīdhukumā bi-kalimāti ‘llāh al-tāmma min kulli shayṭān wa-hāmma wa-min kulli
ʿayn lāmma – ibid.; for parallels from the canonical Ḥadīth literature, see A.J.
Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane (Leiden: Brill, 1933–
1969), Vol. 7, 107; for hāmma and its plural form hawāmm, see Ibn Ḥammād
al-Jawharī, Tāj al-lugha wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿarabiyya, Vol. 5 (Beirut: Dār al-ʿilm
Ii- ‘l-malāyīn, 1399/1979), 2062; on the power of the ‘evil eye’, see, for example,
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Razī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, Vol. 6, 343ff.
290   Language and hermeneutics
15 Nawādir al-uṣūl,, 2 [= Vol. 1, 24, l. 9]; also, for example, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī,
al-Muṣannaf, ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī, Vol. 4 (Simlak, India: al-Majlis
al-ʿIlmī, 1970–1972/1390–1392), 336 no. 7987; cf. Wensinck, Concordance et indice
de la tradition Musulmane, Vol. 4, 427.
16 See Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, Introduction, 35ff. et passim; also,
Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae, Introduction, 17ff.
17 See al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, Vol. 6, 714ff.; for the hesitancy of another com-
panion, ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir, see al-Farrāʾ (d. c.516 h), Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ, Vol. 1, 173f.:
The prophet asked him:
Shall I not teach you, ʿUqba, the best two Sūras to recite? Then he taught me “Say,
I seek refuge …” He saw that I was not greatly pleased with them so when he
alighted for the morning prayer he used them in leading the people in the morning
prayer.
cf. ibid., Vol. 2, 451; see also A. Jones, “The Qurʾān II”, in Arabic Literature to the
End of the Umayyad Period, eds A.F.L. Beeston et. al (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983) (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Vol. 1), 238.
18 Wa-Ibn Masʿūd … kāna yaḥukku al-muʿawwidhatayni min al-muṣḥaf wa-yaqūlu: la
tukhalliṭū ‘l-Qurʾān bi-mā laysa minhu, innahumā laysatā min kitāb Allāh, innamā
umira ‘l-nabiyy an yataʿawwadha bihimā – al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr.
19 See, for example, the long chapters in al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 1, passim; also,
al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Kitāb al-adhkār wal-daʿawāt, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-
Khayr, l414/1994), 390–435; for the long list of traditions in the canonical Ḥadīth
literature, cf. Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane, Vol. 4,
424–32.
20 On this topic, see, for example, Arthur Versluis. Magic and Mysticism: An Introduc-
tion to Western Esotericism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
21 On the superiority of Arabic, see, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ,
ed. Sāmī Naṣr Luṭf (ʿAyn Shams: Maktabat al-ḥurriyya al-ḥadītha, c.1983) 115f.; cf.
Abū Ḥātim al-Razī, Kitāb al-zīna fī al-kalimāt al-islāmiyya al-ʿarabiyya, ed. M.
Ḥusayn b. Fayḍ Allāh al-Hamdānī, Vol. 1 (Cairo: Maṭābiʿ dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī,
1957–1958), 64f., 68f., 71 et passim. For a comparative study on the superiority and
primordiality of languages in Antiquity and Late Antiquity, see M. Rubin, “The Lan-
guage of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiq-
uity”, Journal of Jewish Studies 49 (1998): 303–33.
22 Cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3, 197–8 §126:
wa-lihādha ‘l-’ilm rijālun kabīrun qadruhum … min ʿulūmihim khawāṣṣ al-ʿilm lil-
ḥurūf wal-asmāʾ.
To this science pertain men whose status is high … Among the sciences [with
which they are familiar] is the science of the special properties of letters and
names.
see also, ibid., §170 (with reference to al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī): “This science is named
the science of the friends of God”. For similar views expressed by Abraham Abulafia,
the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic, see Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics in
Abraham Abulafia, 23 et passim.
23 Al-Tirmidhī frequently connects the root w-l-h, which denotes intense love and the
stupefaction that arises from strong emotions, with the divine name Allāh and its off-
shoots – see, for example, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, eds A.J. Arberry and A.H. Abdel-Kader
(Cairo: Maktabat wa-Maṭbaʻat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1947), 53–4; Kitāb
al-ṣalāt, eds ʿA.Ḥ. Maḥmūd and H. Zaydān (Cairo: Dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī, 1965), 165:
wa-awwalu asmāʾ al-rabb huwa Allāh wa-mubtadaʾ asmāʾihi huwa Allāh, fa-idhā
sārat al-qulūb ilā ‘llāh inqaṭaʿat ʿan al-khalq, walihat bihi wa-lāhat ʿan al-khalq …;
 The power of words   291
cf. also Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Lawāmiʿ al-bayyināt (= Sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā)
(Cairo: Maktabat al-kuliyya al-azhariyya, 1976), 113ff.: inna ’l-walah ʿibāra ʿan
al-maḥabba ’l-shadīda … ʿinda ’l-wijdān wa ’l-wiṣāl wa-khawf shadīd ʿinda ’l-fiqdān
wa ’l-infiṣāl, fa-huwa taʿālā musamman bi-’smi Allāh li-ʾanna ‘l-muʾminīna yahṣulu
lahum al-bahja wal-surūr ʿinda maʿrifatihi wa-yahṣulu lahum ḥuzn shadīd ʿinda
’l-ḥijāb wa ’l-buʿd.
24 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān, ed. Ḥusnī Zaydān (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat
al-saʿāda, 1969), 104–5.
25 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ, 114; see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl
naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān, 104.
26 On the lām-alif as the twenty-ninth letter, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ,
114; cf. Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 28, 1. 1; also al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. ah 175), Kitāb al-Ḥurūf
wal-adawāt (Muscat: Wizārat al-Turāth wa-al-Thaqāfah, 2014), 47; Abū Ḥātim
al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna, Vol. 1, 65, 70 et passim; cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makki-
yya, Vol. 1, 325 §§617ff.; also Ibn al-ʿArabī, Kitāb al-mīm wal-wāw wal-nūn,
108 – note that Ibn al-ʿArabī counts the lām-alif as the twenty-eighth letter, whereas
he does not count the alif among the letters: wa-ʿindanā ‘l-alif laysat min al-ḥurūf; cf.
Vajda, “Les Lettres et sons”, 118 and n. 1; also Schimmel, “Letter Symbolism in Ṣūfī
Literature”, 419.
27 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ‘Ilm al-awliyāʾ, 113–14; cf. Abū Ḥātim al-Razī, Kitāb al-zīna,
Vol. 1, 66f.; on a similar view pronounced by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (309/922), see Nwyia,
Exégèse coranique at langage mystique, 165.
28 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,‘Ilm al-awliyāʾ, 115; cf. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt,
158: al-maʿrifa mashḥūna … wal-asmāʾ ḥashwuhā.
29 For Radtke’s reasons for re-publishing al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s treatise under the title
of Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Drei Schriften des Theosophen von
Tirmiḏ, ed. Brend Radtke (Beirut: Steiner, 1992), 3ff.; for an early reference to the
text as Khatm al-awliyāʾ, see, for example, ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Jullabī al-Hujwīrī (d.
465/1072), Kashf al-maḥjūb, trans. R.A. Nicholson (London: Luzac & Co., 1976
[1936]), 141.
30 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 58 §81; cf. the following unanswered, yet
suggestive, questions in Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 22: No. 26. “What is the Science of Primor-
diality and [the meaning of] his saying, ‘God was and there was no thing with Him’?
Then what?”, also no. 27: “What is the beginning of names?” See also Radtke and
O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 74f. et passim.
31 For the ‘magical’ connotations of ‘phonosymbolism’, a discipline that “deals with
sound/image, sound/meaning and sound/archetype correspondences”, and the recent
“increasingly sophisticated study of synaesthesia and semantic values associated with
submorphemic entities, also called ‘phonesthemes’ ” – see Terrence Kaufman in
Karin C. Ryding, “Alchemical Phonology”, 1–2 and n. 1. The comparative material
and the philosophical discourse concerning the nexus of ‘language’ and ‘reality’ is
vast and I do presume to delve into it here. Suffice it to mention the fascinating ideas
of Gérard Genette’s Mimologics, reiterating Plato’s Cratylus – see Gérard Genette’s
Mimologics, trans. Thaïs Morgan (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).
32 Note that my translation deviates somewhat from the editor’s reading, implied by his
insertion – for a clarification that I find uncalled for – of two words to al-Tirmidhī’s
text: … ḥattā anna nafs al-ism dalīl ʿalā [wujūd ṣāḥib] al-ism.
33 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ, 113; cf. Nawādir al-uṣūl, 185: wa ’l-asmāʾ
simāt al-shayʾ fa-kull ism dalīl ʿalā ṣāḥibihi wa-mushtāqq min maʿnāhu wal-asmāʾ
al-aṣliyya hiya allatī jāʾat min ʿindi ‘llāh taʿālā mithlu Yaḥyā [Q. 7:19] … wa-Aḥmad
[Q. 6:61] …; cf. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna, Vol. 2, 8; note that al-Rāzī cites
al-Tirmidhī explicitly: qāla al-Tirmidhī fī ‘l-ism … For the different parsing of ism
according to the grammarians of Kūfa and Baṣra, see Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-insāf fī
masāʾil al-khilāf. Die Grammatischen Streitfragen der Basrer und Kufer, ed. G. Weil
292   Language and hermeneutics
(Leiden: Brill, 1913), 1–6: dhahaba ’l-kūfiyyūn ilā anna ’l-ism mushtāqq min
al-wasm wa-huwa ’l-ʿalāma wa-dhahaba ’l-baṣriyyūn ilā annahu mushtāqq min
­al-sumuww wa-huwa ʿuluww; also, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Lawāmiʿ al-bayyināt, 27.
34 Cf. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna, Vol. 2, 7f. and Vajda, “Les Lettres et sons”,
123 and nn 1 and 2.
35 It should be noted that the above represents a specific rather than a universal ‘decod-
ing’ of the letters under observation. The ‘decoding’ may vary according to the con-
textual or hermeneutic environment. Mīm, for example, can stand for malik, mulk,
mamlaka etc. – cf. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, 166f.; see also,
al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt: Tafsīr Ṣūfī kāmil li ‘l-Qurʾān al-karīm, ed. I. Basyūnī
(Cairo: Dār al-kātib al-ʿarabī li ‘l-ṭibāʿa wa ‘l-nashr, 1390/1971), Vol. 1, 203.
36 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ, 115.
37 Ibid., 116–17: … wa-qīla wahad [?] wa-qīla aḥad thumma mayyazahu [sic] ʿalā
qālib falil fa-qālu wahid.
38 For the transcendence of aḥad, see Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna, Vol. 2, 42; also,
ibid., 33 where the author discusses the superiority of aḥad over wāḥid; cf. also ibid.,
Vol. 1, 69–70: fa-bi ‘l-ḥisāb qāmat al-dunyā wal-ākhira … fa-kāna fī iṣṭifāʾ al-ḥurūf
iṣṭifāʾ al-ḥisāb kullihi; for a ‘philosophical’ interpretation, cf. A. Johns, “Daqāʾiq
al-ḥurūf by ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel”, JRAS (1955): 68–9. Whether my reading of
this paragraph is correct remains a moot question.
39 For further discussion and references to kun, see Sara Sviri, “KUN – the Existence-
Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism: A Survey of Text in the Creative Power of
Language”, in The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign, eds
Sergio La Porta and David Shulman (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 35–68.
40 Cf. Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl, 87 §175: innamā ’l-kāf kāf al-kawn wal-nūn nūruhu.
41 For a lengthy meditation on the divine KUN and the mystical significance of the kāf
and the nūn, see Ibn al-ʿArabī, Shajarat al-kawn (various editions); also, Ibn
al-ʿArabī, Kitāb al-iʿlām bi-ishārāt ahl al-ilhām, Bāb al-maʿrifa (Hyderabad:
Maṭbaʿat jamʿiyyat dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-ʿuthmāniyya, 1362 h) 5, ll. 19–20: man
uʿṭiya kun fa-qad uʿṭiya ‘l-maʿrifa; Ibn al-ʿArabī, Kitāb al-mīm wal-wāw wal-nūn,
111; Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3, Ch. 26, 204, §170.
42 For arguments against assigning such potency to kun, see Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,
Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, Vol. 1, 487f. (commentary to Q. 2:117).
43 For an allusion to an act of ‘creation’ by means of kun carried out by a human agent,
see Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl, 86–7 §175, and note the underlying defensive tone:
wa-’lam anna ’l-sayyār innamā yūṣafu bi-’l-wilāya idhā ūtiya kun … wa-laysa
’l-talaffuẓ bi-’l-kāf wal-nūn jā’izan fī ḥaqq al-bāriʾ subḥānahu innamā maʿnāhu
surʿat al-ījād faqaṭ.
Know that the wayfarer is deemed holy only when he is given kun … The articu-
lation of kāf and nūn [however] does not mean impinging on the prerogative of the
creator, Glory be to Him; only the speed [with which] something is brought into
existence.
Cf. also Ibn al-ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. Abu al-Ala’ Afifi, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār
al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1966), 142 (the chapter on ʿĪsā): “ ‘Kun’ is God’s word. In its
capacity as the instrument of creation (the creative logos), this word defines exist-
ence: all existents stem from kun, and are, therefore, God’s words.”
44 The term manqūs is used prolifically by Sibawayhi; see al-Kitāb, ed. H. Derenbourg,
Vol. 2 (Paris: Impremerie Nationale, 1889), 67ff., 90ff., 165ff. et passim. I am grate-
ful to Professor Aryeh Levin for this reference.
45 Cf. Arberry’s translation, 135, where both kalima and kalimāt are translated by
‘words’ in the plural.
46 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 3, ll. 2–5 [= Vol. 1, 24].
 The power of words   293
47 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 3, ll. 13–16 [= Vol. 1, 25.] This is indeed a rare tradition. One other
source in which it is recorded is al-Tabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, Vol. 7 (Cairo: Dār
al-Ḥadīth, 1415–1416/1995), 165 (no. 7169). For this reference, I am indebted to Dr
Abraham Hakim.
48 For the analogy of letters and the act of creation, see Louis Massignon, The Passion
of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Abridged edition, ed. and trans. Herbert
Mason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 563ff.; cf. A. Johns,
“Daqāʾiq al-ḥurūf”, 55ff. This treatise was written by ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel
(1693) as a commentary to two verses by Ibn al-ʿArabī.
49 For variants, see Nawādir al-uṣūl, ibid.; cf. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Vol. 1
(Kitāb al-adhkār wal-daʿawāt), 421ff.; also, Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la
tradition Musulmane, Vol. 4, 426.
50 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 3, ll. 18–22.
51 The term mukhallaṭ is frequently used by al-Tirmidhī to denote an inferior type of
worshipper in whose actions and aspirations the nafs and its associates, the ‘adversar-
ies’, comingle; see, for example, Sīrat al-awliyāʾ, 48 §71: fa-kam min murīd
mukhallaṭ istamaʿa ilā najwāhu fa-rakana ilayhā wa-qad mazajathu ‘l-nafs
bi-dawāhīhā – “How many a ‘mixed’ seeker listens to [God’s] secret communication
and relies on it while his nafs blends [this] with her wile tricks”; also Nawādir
al-uṣūl, Ch. 242, 309; see also Chapter 8 in this monograph, [n. 48]. In translating
this and other passages, I have chosen to retain the personified aspect of nafs by using
the feminine pronouns she, her (rather than it, its) as in Arabic.
52 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 4, ll. 8–11 [= Vol. 1, 27, ll. 6–9].
53 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 4, ll. 13–14; on the difference between the ‘people of the word
[truly]’ and the ‘people who [merely] pronounce the word’, see Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch.
213, 246–8: … al-farq bayna ahl al-kalima wa-ahl al-qawl bil-kalima [= Vol. 2,
72–5]; also Masʾala fī ’l-īmān, MS. Chester Beatty, f. 139b, 1. 5:
[al-jāhil] yaṭmaʿu … an yanāla manāzil al-wasāʾil fa-yakūna bayna yadayhi wa-lā
yadrī bayna yaday man huwa illā ‘l-ism wal-ḥurūf allatt yanṭiqu bihā.
The ignorant one wishes to attain the loci of divine gifts and to be in front of Him,
but he does not know in front of whom he is, only the word and the letters that he
utters.
54 Nawādir al-uṣūl, 5, ll. 26–9 [= Vol. 1, 31, ll. 3–9].
55 Cf. Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Ch. 13, 75, ll. 5–6; also, al-Niffarī, Kitāb
al-mawāqif wal-mukhāṭabāt, 195–6 (mukhāṭaba 40):
yā ʿAbd istaʿidh bī mimmā taʿlamu tastaʿidh bī minka wa ‘staʿidh bī mimmā lā
taʿlamu tastaʿidh bī minnī.
O, worshipper! Ask refuge in Me from what you know – you will then be asking
refuge in Me from you; and ask refuge in Me from what you do not know – you
will then be asking refuge in Me from Me.
see also, al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, Vol. 6, 354; also Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-
makkiyya, Vol. l, 229 §627 and Vol. 10, 169 §224. For parallels from the canonical
Ḥadīth literature, see Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane,
Vol. 4, 427.
56 See Section 38 of Ibn Gabirol’s philosophical poem Keter Malkhūt – The Kingly
Crown, trans. Bernard Lewis (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1961), 62. On “fleeing
from You to You” in the poetry of Ibn Gabirol and on its Islamic antecedents, see Y.
Ratzaby, Migginze Shirat Hakkēdēm (Texts and Studies in Orient [sic] Liturgical
Poetry) (Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayyim, 1991), 330, 341–2 (in Hebrew). Ratzaby
fails, however, to register the wide circulation of the Islamic ḥadīth replicated, almost
verbatim, by Ibn Gabirol – on this motif in Hebrew Poetry in general, see D. Sadan,
294   Language and hermeneutics
“From You to You”, Maḥanayyim 35 (1958): 25–35. For the last two references, I am
grateful to Professor Joseph Yahalom.
57 Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Miskawayh, Al-Ḥikma al-khālida, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
Badawī (Cairo: Maktabat al-nahḍa al-miṣriyya, 1952), 194.
58 See, for example, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣafāʾ, MS. Chester Beatty 4459, f.
70b, ll. 14–17:
wa-hādhā baʿda mā yaʿrifu Allāha ḥaqqa maʿrifatihi wa-ʿarafa ‘l-ashyāʾ minhu
wa-bihi a-lahu wa-ilayhi wa-raʾā ’l-ashyāʾ kamā kāna [!] wa-kamā hiya wa-kamā
takūnu … wa-kushifat lahu ‘l-ashyāʾ kamā hiya.
This is after he knows God with a true knowledge; he knows that things are from
Him, by Him, for Him, to Him; he sees things as they were, as they are, as they
will be … Thus, things are revealed to him as they [really] are.
59 Adawāt al-ḥurūf is, to the best of my knowledge, a rather unusual term for the organs of
articulation; for a similar term, ālāt al-nuṭq, employed by Ibn Jinnī (fourth/tenth
century), see M.H. Bakalla, Ibn Jinnī: An Early Arab Muslim Phonetician (London:
European Language Publications, 1402/1982), Part III, Ch. 2, 233; for the locus, or point,
of articulation, however, Ibn Jinnī employs the terms makhraj, makhārij or madraja,
madārij – see Bakalla, Ibn Jinnī, 244–5. Makhraj, or mukhraj, and the plural form
makhārij, are employed by al-Sibawayhi – see Al-Kitāb, Vol. 2, 452ff. Cf. Abū Ḥātim
al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna 1, 64, who alternates ḥayyiz, aḥyāz with madraj (?), madārij; note,
however, the editor’s variant reading of makhraj for madraj – ibid., 65, n. 1.
60 See [n. 24].
61 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿilm al-awliyāʾ, 114:
He divided the letters among the [vocal] instruments: the throat (al-halq), the uvula
(al-lahāt), the tongue (al-lisān), the [two sets of] teeth (al-asnān) and the two lips
(al-shafatāni). Hence the saying of ʿAlī, may Allāh be pleased with him: “There is
no speech unless it be produced at seven [organs]: the throat, the uvula, etc …”
Note that al-Tirmidhī’s seven-based system differs from the nine-based one devised
by al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. 791); cf. the similar but more complex classification of
al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna, Vol. 1, 64; cf. Sibawayhi, al-Kitāb, Vol. 2, 453, where an elab-
orate system of sixteen loci of articulation is proposed. It is noteworthy that in the
context of his physio-psychological theory, too, al-Tirmidhī resorts to a seven-based
system, the “seven organs” – al-jawāriḥ al-sabʿ; see, for example, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 3:
wa-jaʿala ‘l-qalb amīran ʿalā ‘l-jawāriḥ … wa-hiya ‘l-jawāriḥ al-sabʿ … wa-jaʿala
‘l-jawāriḥ al-sabʿ bi-manzilat sabʿa min al-ghanam wa-wakkala ‘l-ʿabd bi-riʿā
yatihā.
God placed the heart as leader over the organs, these are the seven organs, and He
made the seven organs like seven sheep, and He assigned man to watch over them.
The “seven organs” motif, which is deeply rooted in al-Tirmidhī’s teaching, and the
recurrence of “seven” as the basis for various classifications, may reflect pre-Islamic
traditions. Sefer Yezira, for example, an early Hebrew text in which mystical lin-
guistics is palpable, talks of “the seven gates of the self (nefesh): two eyes, two ears,
two nostrils and a mouth” (4:7). As for the vocal instruments, al-Tirmidhī’s system is,
in fact, identical with the five-loci one of Sefer Yezira in all but one point: whereas
al-Tirmidhī, basing himself on a tradition attributed to ʿAlī, counts “teeth” as well as
“lips” as two organs each, namely upper and lower, in Sefer Yezira each of them
counts as one organ – “Twenty-two foundation letters … He set them in the mouth in
five places: in the throat, in the palate, in the tongue, in the teeth, in the lips” (2:3).
On the “striking similarity” between Sefer Yezira and “the phonological analysis of
the Arabic system by al-Khalīl”, see Ryding, “Alchemical Phonology”, 84; on the
 The power of words   295
intriguing likelihood of an early Indian source for the phonetic classification of both
Sefer Yezira and the Arab grammarians, see Liebes, Ars Poetica, 236–7.
62 Cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s notion of istiḥḍār, namely, the ‘evocation’ of words and letters by
the practitioner through his imagination (khayāl). According to both Ibn al-ʿArabī and
al-Tirmidhī, the acts of writing and pronouncing are not in themselves sufficient for
drawing out the potency that words and letters contain; see, for example, Ibn
al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3, Ch. 26 (fī maʿrifat aqṭāb al-rumūz), 203
§§168ff.: wa-idhā kāna maʿahu ‘l-istiḥḍār ʿamila – “if he employs ‘visualization’
(istiḥḍār), he will be efficacious [in his act of power]”; also ibid., 204 §170, where
Ibn al-ʿArabī explicitly acknowledges al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.
63 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 14; for the ascent of words, see Appendix, 8.
64 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 8; see also, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat
al-awliyāʾ, 12 §22.
65 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 8; see also, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 258, 1. 19.
66 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-riyāḍa, 34–42; see also, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 411, ll.
6–7: lam yatarāʾā li- ʿaynay al-fuʾād fī ṣadrihi ṣunʿu ‘llāh fī tilka ‘l-zīna; cf. Radtke,
al-Ḥakīm at-Tirmiḏī 1980, 68ff. et passim.
67 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 319–21 [= Vol. 2, 212–16]; for parallels
from the canonical Ḥadīth literature, see Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tra-
dition Musulmane, Vol. 6, 496–7; see also, al-Farrāʾ, Vol. 2, 451; and al-Makkī, Qūt
al-qulūb, Vol. 1, 70ff. The meaning of yanfuthu is by no means unequivocal. Lexi-
cographers and commentators were debating the meaning of nafth and its derivatives.
According to Lisān al-ʿarab (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1956), Vol. 2, 195–6, “nafth is less
than ‘spitting’ (tafl), since spitting always produces some spittle, whereas nafth
resembles more ‘exhaling’ (nafkh). [However], it has been [also] said that nafth is
precisely ‘spitting’ ” – al-nafth aqall min al-tafi li-anna ‘l-tafl lā yakūnu illā maʿahu
shayʾ min al-rīq, wal-nafth shabīh bil-nafkh. wa-qīla, huwa al-tafl bi-ʿAynihi; cf. Ibn
al-Jawzī, Gharīb al-ḥadīth, Vol. 2 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1405/1985),
422–3: al-nafth nafkh laysa maʾahu rīq; also, Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, Vol. 8, 334.
See also the pertinent section on “Magic and Medicine”, in R.G. Hoyland, Arabia
and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam (London: Routledge,
2001), 150–3, and, in particular, the prooftexts from pre-Islamic poetry, 153.
Al-Tirmidhī’s explanation implies that, for him, nafth denotes a kind of ‘blowing’
produced through lips that are almost closed, unlike ‘breathing’ – an act that he labels
nafkh – which is produced through the open mouth. On the basis of the cluster ‘bf’
with which al-Tirmidhī illustrates the point he is making, it is possible to deduce that
the ‘blowing’ he has in mind produces not only air, but also small spurts of spittle.
Note that the same root, n-f-th, is used in Sūrat al-falaq (Q. 113:5) to denote a malev-
olent act of witchcraft. There, it is the women ‘blowing on knots’ – al-naffāthāt fī
’l-ʿuqad – from whose spells one should take refuge. According to some comment-
ators, nafth in this context means ‘to exhale (nafkh) whilst spitting on the magical
knots’. However, according to Lisān al-ʿArab, Vol. 2, 196, no spittle is involved in
the act: al- naffāthāt fī l-’uqad hunna al-sawāḥir, wal-nawāfith al-sawāḥir ḥīna yan-
futhna fī ‘l-’uqad bi-lā rīq; also Fakhr al-Dīn al-Razī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, Vol. 16,
178–9; cf., however, Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, Vol. 8, 334: fa-ammā ‘l- naffāthāt,
fa-qāla Ibn Qutayba hunna ’l-sawāḥir yanfuthna ayy yatfulna idhā saḥarna wa-
raqayna. qāla al-Zajjāj, yatfulna bi-lā rīq ka-annahu nafkh; wa-qāla Ibn al-Anbārī:
qāla ’l-lughawiyyūn: tafsīr nafatha nafakha nafkhan laysa maʿahu rīq …
68 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 319, ll. 28–9 [= Vol. 2, 213, ll. 8–9]: li-
annahu yanbaghī min qirāʾat hādhihi al-suwar an yaṣila ilā ’l-jasad nūruhā
wa-barakatuhā, wa-lā yaqdiru ʿalā ’l-īṣāl illā bi-mithli hādhā.
69 Contrary to al-Tirmidhī’s pervasive use of the term nafs to designate the adverse and
repugnant aspect of man’s psyche, it is obvious that here, in the context of the ascension
296   Language and hermeneutics
to the Throne, he is referring to a noble entity. In fact, in the passages which follow
the above citation, and basing himself on Q. 39:42 – “God takes the souls (al-anfus)
at the time of their death, and that which has not died, in its sleep; He withholds that
against which He has decreed death but loosens the other till a stated term.” –
al-Tirmidhī equates anfus (souls, pl. of nafs) with arwāḥ (spirits, pl. of rūḥ) –
see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 321 [= Vol. 2, 216, ll. 6—7]; cf. Kitāb
al-ṣalāt, 151:
jaʿalahu rūḥāniyyan nafsiyyan jamaʿa lahu al-rūḥ wal-nafs fī jawf wāḥid yaʿmalāni
bi-ḥayātayni wa-quwwatayni wa-tadbīrayni ʿubūdata ’llāh. wa-fī al-manām
takhruju iḥdāhumā hiya ’l-nafs li-tuʿāyina wa-tushāhida akhbār al-malakūt fī
’l-ghayb thumma tarjiʿu ilā ’l-rūḥ wal-ʿaql bi-tilka ’l-akhbār min al-bishāra.
He made man an entity of spirit and psyche. He placed the two together in one
hollow body and there they operate with two vitalities, two energies, and two dis-
positions by way of worshipping God. Then, during sleep, one of the two, the nafs,
goes out in order to see and witness the affairs in the hiddenness of the divine
Kingdom. The nafs then returns to the spirit and the mind, carrying with her the
messages of these affairs.
70 See [n. 66].
71 Cf. Kubrā, Fawāʾiḥ al-jamāl, 68–9 §143, where Kubrā attributes to Sahl al-Tustarī
(d. 283/896) the distinction between two types of sighing: ah, which is, he says, “the
name of God”, versus ākh, which is “the name of Satan” – a sigh that is accompanied
by spitting.
72 fa-addā ‘l-rūḥ ilā al-kaffayni bi-dhālika al-nafth rīḥan qad bāsharat anwār al-ṣadr
allatī anārathā tilka al-kalimāt wa-ashʿalathā – 320, ll. 8–9 [= Vol. 2, 213, II. 23–5].
73 fa-tafāwut al-nafathāt min ahlihā ʿalā qadr nūr qulūbihim wa-ʿilmihim bi-tilka
al-kalimāt – 320, ll. 13–14 [= Vol. 2, 214, 1. 5].
74 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 320 ll. 14–17 [= Vol. 2, 214, ll. 6–9]. For the
tradition according to which the soul ascends to God during sleep, see, for example,
al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, Vol. 24 (Cairo: Maktabat wa-maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī
al-Ḥalabī, 1373/1954, 8f. (commentary to Q. 39:42).
75 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, 14.
76 For comparative studies on Jewish mystical literature in Early Islam and Late Antiq-
uity, see, for example, D.J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish
Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision (Tübingen: J.C.B Mohr, 1988), Appendix II: “Islamic
Reflections of Merkabah Traditions”, 467–90; also S. Wasserstrom, “Sefer Yezira and
Early Islam: a Reappraisal”, Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993):
1–30; note, however, Liebes’ critique, in particular of Wasserstrom’s linguistic thesis
concerning Sefer Yezira – see Ars Poetica: 234f.
77 On the ascent of letters in Jewish mysticism, see Idel, “Reification of Language”,
66ff.; for the mystical ascent of the soul to the heavenly realms during prayers and
invocations, see Janowitz, The Poetics of Ascent (1989) – passim.
78 See al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Ch. 287 416–20 [= Vol. 2, 410–18];
cf. also Ch. 254, 336–7 [= Vol. 2, 246–9]; see also, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm
al-awliyāʾ, 140 et passim. For the ḥadīth, reported in the name of Ubayy b. Kaʿb,
“I heard the Prophet say, ‘Enjoin upon them the Word of Godfearing’ – lā ilāha
illā ‘llāh”, see Wensinck, Concordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane, Vol.
6, 58. For the term kalimat al-ikhlāṣ, see Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-zīna,
Vol. 1, 149.
79 On ʿIlliyyūn, see El2, Vol. 3, ll. 32–3 (R. Paret); see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Sīrat
al-awliyāʾ, 18 §35 (= Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic
Mysticism, 68–9). For a detailed discussion of this heavenly location, see Amir-Moe-
zzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism, 38ff.
 The power of words   297
80 Mas’ala no. 57, 115; cf. al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, ʿIlm al-awliyāʾ, 134–5 – see Appen-
dix, no. 8.
81 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 321, ll. 3–7 [= Vol. 2, 215, ll. 15–19]:
fa-man ittakhadha hādhā ‘l-fi‘l ʿindamā ya’wī ilā firāshihi ‘ādatan raʾā ‘l-nafʿ
al-ẓāhir fī jasadihi wa-sāʾir umūrihi li-ʾanna ‘l-nafs ta’ruju ilā ‘llāh fī manāmihā
maʿa ‘l-baraka wa- ’l-ṭahāra wa- ’l-nazāha wa ’l-takhalluṣ min al-shirk bi-qirāʾat
hādhihi ’l-sūra [!] fa-tasjudu taḥta ’l-ʿarsh wa-hiya bi-hādhihi ‘l-ṣifa qad
ightasalat bi-hādhihi ‘l-ashyāʾ fa-tanālu min ḥibāʾ ‘llāh wa-karāmatihi ma tarjiʿu
bihi ilā al-jasad bil-khayr al-kathīr wa-’l-mazīd al-shāfī.
82 Cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 3, Ch. 26 (fī maʿrifat aqṭāb al-rumūz),
204, §170: wa-hādhā al-ʿilm yusammā ʿilm al-awliyāʾ wa-bihi taẓharu aʿyān
al-kāʾināt … wa-min hādhā jaʿala ‘l-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī ʿilm al-awliyāʾ; also, Ibn
al-ʿArabī, Kitāb al-mīm wal-wāw wal-nūn, 107.
83 For the efficacy of Yā Sīn, see Ibn al-ʿArabī’s account of his marvellous recovery
thanks to his father’s recitation of this sūra, Addas, Quest for the Red Sulphur, 20.
84 Cf. Masʾala, MS. Chester Beatty, f. 80b, ll. 2–7:
saʾalta ʿan ḥaqīqat bi-’smi ‘llāh fa-inna ’l-dunyā kulluhā samm … fa-bi- bi-’smi
’llāh yuʾkhadhu ‘l-samm ḥattā lā yaḍurrahu … wa-bil-ḥamdi li-‘llāh yakhruju
‘l-ʿibād ilā ’llāh ʿan wabālihā fa-qad khaffafa ’llah ʿan al-ʿibād wa-aʿṭāhum kali-
matayni wāfiratayni taʾkhudhu ’l-dunyā kullahā bi-kalima wāḥida fa-taslamu min
sammihā wa-fitnatihā … bil-ḥamdi li-’llāh.
see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, 410.
85 For the use of these formulae in early Shīʿism and the teaching of the Shīʿī Imams
that these sacred formulae mark the superiority of man over the angels, see Amir-
Moezzi, The Divine Guide, 35 and 164, n. 189.
86 Cf. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, “Ḥadīth al-barāʾāt”, 75ff.; for the concept
of barāʾa as acquittance, see M.J. Kister, “ ‘Shaʿbān is My Month’: A Study of an
Early Tradition”, in Society and Religion from Jāhiliyya to Islām (Aldershot: Vari-
orum, 1990 [no. XI]), 26, n. 49; on the pagan notion of ʿahd in similar contexts, cf.
Edward Westermarck, Pagan Survivals of Mohammedan Civilization (London:
­Macmillan & Co, 1933), 83ff.
87 For canonical traditions on talqīn al-mayyit bi-lā ilāha illā ’llāh, see Wensinck, Con-
cordance et indice de la tradition Musulmane, Vol. 6, 296.
88 For an in-depth commentary on the lā ilāha illā ’llāh – also known as tahlīl, see Ibn
al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Ch. 198; also, Charles-André Gilis, Le Coran et la
Fonction d’Hermès (= trans. of Ibn al-ʿArabī, Les trente-six attestations coraniques
de l’unité) (Paris: Éditions al-Bustane, 1994), Introduction.
13 The Countless Faces of
Understanding
Istinbāṭ, listening and exegesis1

Introduction
In his seminal work Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, Paul Nwyia states
that the Ṣūfīs refer to their particular method of Qurʾānic exegesis as istinbāṭ
rather than as tafsīr or taʾwīl.2 On the face of it, this statement may be corrobo-
rated by two classical Ṣūfī compilations: the Kitāb al-Lumaʿ by Abū Naṣr
al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), which contains a section titled Kitāb al-Mustanbaṭāt,3 and
the Tahdhīb al-asrār by Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī (d. 406/1012), which contains a
chapter titled Bāb fī dhikr mustanbaṭātihim min al-Qurʾān wa’l-sunna.4 Other
classical Ṣūfī compilations, however, such as Kitāb al-Taʿarruf by Abū Bakr
al-Kalābādhī (d. c.380/990), al-Risāla by Abū’l Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d.
465/1072) and ʿAwārif al-maʿārif by Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī (d.
632/1234) – albeit incorporating copious exegetical material and discussions
thereof – contain no similar chapter headings. Similarly, lists of Ṣūfī terms and
definitions (alfāẓ, iṣṭilāḥāt) such as those found in Qushayrī’s Risāla, in Kashf
al-maḥjūb by ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Jullabī al-Hujwīrī (d. c.456/1063–1064), in
al-Suhrawardī’s ʿAwārif al-maʿārif and also in al-Sarrāj’s own work,5 do not
include the term istinbāṭ. It seems, therefore, that although istinbāṭ and its deriv-
atives are documented in Ṣūfī literature, their usage is casual rather than technical
and by no means dissimilar to their use in non-Ṣūfī sources. It would appear that
Nwyia’s statement went too far and that it calls for revision and modification.
Nevertheless, irrespective of whether Ṣūfī Qurʾānic exegesis is qualified by a
specific term or not, it does have distinctive features which merit elaboration.
The main purpose of this chapter is, indeed, the contextualization of the theoretical
and practical aspects of Ṣūfī exegesis. However, while consulting the sources, it
became evident that the thematic study of istinbāṭ as a general exegetical method
occupies only a marginal position in both primary and secondary literatures. This
unexpected find warrants that, before discussing Ṣūfī exegesis in particular, a
brief excursus on the term istinbāṭ in general be attempted. In the first part of
this chapter and before turning to discuss Ṣūfī exegesis, I propose, therefore, to
make some observations on the occurrence of istinbāṭ in non-Ṣūfī literature to
corroborate my conclusion that istinbāṭ cannot be said to denote specifically
­Ṣūfī exegesis. However, in my research, another term did stand out as especially
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   299
connected for the Ṣūfīs with eliciting meaning from the Qurʾān, that of istimāʿ
(listening). This term refers to listening to the recitation of the Qurʾān as a mys-
tical practice. I will discuss this practice and its relevance for Qurʾānic exegesis
among Ṣūfīs in the second part of this chapter.

Istinbāṭ in non-Ṣūfī literature

According to the classical dictionaries, the primary meaning of the root n-b-ṭ is
the gushing forth of water (as from a new well). Conjugated in the fourth and
tenth stems, the verbs anbaṭa and istanbaṭa mean ‘to discover water that is
hidden deep in the earth; to make it gush forth and to bring it up to the surface’.6
From this primary meaning it went on to relate to anything that emerges, or is
brought out, from the inside to the outside, including information or assets.7 The
intrinsic nexus of istinbāṭ and water is reflected in an apparently ancient usage,
documented in Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya by Ibn Waḥshiyya (d. 291/904).
This work contains a detailed chapter titled “Concerning the Drawing of Water
and its Engineering” (Bāb istinbāṭ al-miyāh wa-handasatihā), where the discus-
sion revolves around finding water, digging wells and drawing water from
them.8 It should be borne in mind that finding water was considered one of the
occult sciences, and therefore istinbāṭ can be associated with concepts such as
firāsa (intuition, perceptiveness, physiognomy)9 and riyāfa (a preternatural
ability to detect the presence of water or to find the right direction on a
journey).10 This, in itself, could have lent the word a distinction in accordance
with the mystical-esoteric tradition, but, in fact, this is not the case. The classical
dictionaries also note the relationship between the root n-b-ṭ and the ethnic
group known as al-nabaṭ or al-anbāṭ (the Aramaic-speaking population of Mes-
opotamia in pre- and early Islamic times).11 They further point out that in
Islamic jurisprudence, istinbāṭ is used synonymously with istikhrāj, both in the
sense of extrapolation through reasoning and understanding of an intrinsic law
(al-fiqh al-bāṭin), extracting it either from one specified in canonical sources, or
from established legal principles.12 According to the dictionaries, this usage is
anchored in the Qurʾān, where the root n-b-ṭ appears in Q. 4:83:

When there comes to them a matter, be it of security or fear, they broadcast

it; if they had referred it to the Messenger and to those in authority (ūlī
‘l-amr) among them, those of them whose task it is to investigate (alladhīna
yastanbiṭūnahu minhum) would have known the matter.13

The word yastanbiṭūnahu, which Arthur J. Arberry, cautiously, translates as

‘investigate’, is often explained by the exegetes as ‘they will extract it from its
sources’,14 in other words, they will bring it out from its hiding-place and dis-
close it. Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) explains this idiom as follows:
“A mustanbiṭ is anyone who brings to light something that was hidden from the
eye’s vision or from the heart’s awareness.”15 I shall come back to the exegetical
literature in what follows, but first let me look at the presence and use of istinbāṭ
300   Language and hermeneutics
in legal literature. Here, although conspicuously absent from the glossaries of
most works examined, as well as from studies on Muslim jurisprudence, istinbāṭ
seems to come closer than in the exegetical sources to functioning as a technical
term. The Kitāb al-Taʿrīfāt by ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413)
includes the passive participle mustanbaṭ in his definition of the term fiqh (juris-
prudence). According to him, fiqh is ʿilm mustanbaṭ, namely, a science whose
methodology is based on hitting upon the correct, though unspecified, legal
application by means of inference.16 Although not strictly defined in legal liter-
ature, the synonyms istinbāṭ and istikhrāj, especially istikhrāj, describe the prac-
tice of inferring positivistic laws (aḥkām farʿiyya) from the basic principles of
Islamic jurisprudence. This practice must rely, as is generally established, on the
four canonical means which are at the forefront for the Sunni jurist: the Qurʾān,
the Sunna, general consensus (ijmāʿ) and analogy (qiyās). For example, in Kashf
al-ẓunūn, Ḥājji Khalīfa (Kātip Çelebi, d. 1067/1657) gives the following expla-
nation under the entry ʿilm uṣūl al-fiqh:

The science of Islamic jurisprudence (ʿilm uṣūl al-fiqh) is knowledge based

on the extrapolation (istinbāṭ) of canonical laws from their general proof-
texts […]. Its aim is to develop the skill (malaka) of deriving positivistic
laws (istinbāṭ al-aḥkām al-sharʿiyya al-farʿiyya) from the four authoritative
sources: The Qurʾān, the Sunna, general consensus (ijmāʿ) and analogy
(qiyās); its benefit is that [through it one learns] to derive these laws
correctly.17

Occasionally, even where qiyās is contested and rejected, the interpretative act
of istinbāṭ is accepted, as is evident from Ibn Khaldūn (d. 780/1378) who, in the
Muqaddima – at least according to some manuscripts – describes the Ḥanbalī
method as follows:

As for Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, those who follow him blindly (muqallidūhu) are
few, because his method rebuffs ijtihād and is firmly rooted in the verifica-
tion of ḥadīth transmission through aligning one tradition with another …
Those who adhere to his madhhab are the firmest upholders of the Sunna
and the Ḥadīth; since they shun qiyās, they address these traditions, when-
ever possible, by means of istinbāṭ.18

It follows, then, that istinbāṭ, used with no derogative nuances, designates the
jurist’s (faqīh) ability to elaborate positivistic laws through the judicious
application of legal principles. This is noteworthy as, although in meaning and
usage istinbāṭ seems to belong to a similar semantic category as ijtihād and
qiyās, terms which, notoriously, draw passionate critique and rejection, istinbāṭ
has maintained a fluid and neutral position, perhaps because it has never
developed into a full-blown technical term in its own right, as is evinced from
the fact that the secondary literature on Islamic jurisprudence, the Encyclopae-
dia of Islam included, barely refers to istinbāṭ.19
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   301
A similar non-judgemental attitude towards istinbāṭ can be gleaned from
appraisals of the science of exegesis at large (ʿilm al-tafsīr). Unlike the contro-
versial terms raʾy (independent reasoning), qiyās and taʾwīl,20 istinbāṭ is gener-
ally free of polemical overtones. The act of istinbāṭ is approved of even by strict
Sunnis who dismiss interpretations based on deductive and allegorical methods.
The following passage by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), the most dis-
tinguished disciple of the Ḥanbalī Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328),
illustrates this point. In his book al-Wābil al-ṣayyib min al-kalim al-ṭayyib (The
Torrential Rain of the Pleasant Word), Ibn Qayyim describes ʿAbd Allāh Ibn
ʿAbbās (d. 58/687), the epitome of Qurʾānic exegetes, in the following words:

Ibn ʿAbbās’ knowledge is like the sea. His discernment (fiqhuhu),21 his
extrapolation of meaning (istinbāṭuhu) and his understanding (fahmuhu) of
the Qurʾān place him above all others [from among the Prophet’s Compan-
ions]. For behold, he heard just as they heard, and consigned the Qurʾān to
memory just as they did – but his soil was one of the choicest and most
fertile. He prepared it for sowing and scattered on it the seeds of the scrip-
tural texts, and it brought forth many good crops.
(Q. 26:7, Q. 31:10)22

According to Ibn Qayyim, then, the extent of Ibn ʿAbbās’ power to extrapolate
one thing (covert) from another (overt) singles him out from other Qurʾānic exe-
getes, so much so that they bow to his rulings. In this respect, adds Ibn Qayyim,
Ibn ʿAbbās surpasses even Abū Hurayra (d. c.59/678–679), although none of the
Prophet’s other Companions could compete with the latter’s remarkable
memory, or with the sheer number of traditions which he had memorized and
transmitted to subsequent generations:

How can we compare Ibn ʿAbbās’ legal rulings (fatāwā), exegesis

(tafsīruhu) and power of extrapolation (istinbāṭuhu) with the rulings and
understanding of Abū Hurayra, [even though] the latter was a greater trans-
mitter than the former; in fact, the greatest ḥadīth transmitter of this nation?
Abū Hurayra transmitted the traditions just as he had heard them. He
studied them by night and was wholly dedicated to their preservation and
transmission. Ibn ʿAbbās, on the other hand, dedicated himself to under-
standing (tafaqquh) the laws and to drawing them out (istinbāṭ), causing the
water of the scriptural rivers to gush forth and reveal their hidden treasures
(istikhrāj kunūzihā).23

It is difficult to ignore the impassioned and rhetorical use of the word istinbāṭ in
the above passage, penned by a foremost devotee and spokesman of Sunni
Islam. Positive istinbāṭ, sustained, no doubt, by its Qurʾānic antecedent in Sūrat
al-Nisāʾ (Q. 4:83), is thus perceived as the ability, divinely bestowed upon men
of authority (ūlū al-amr)24 to engage in a profound interpretative study of
­scripture and tradition by resorting to a somewhat inferential and intuitive
302   Language and hermeneutics
method. It reflects, perhaps surprisingly, an acceptance and approval of the
ability of such men to draw implicit interpretations by correct reasoning so as to
extend the scope of the Sunna without overstepping it or shaking its founda-
tions.25 Ibn ʿAbbās was seen to possess this skill; Ibn Qayyim, like his master
Ibn Taymiyya, portrayed him, therefore, as the paragon of correct Qurʾānic exe-
gesis and judicious derivation of laws.26 Exegesis based on this kind of istinbāṭ
is considered correct and constructive, unlike exegesis that is based on inde-
pendent reasoning (raʾy) alone.27
We may conclude this part by suggesting that the exegetical methodology,
evolved and preserved in orthodox circles for juridical or other purposes, allows
for understanding Qurʾānic passages that cannot be interpreted otherwise by
applying istinbāṭ, that is, understanding by means of wise extrapolation and dis-
cernment. Alongside the loyalty to the model of eminent scholars such as Ibn
Masʿūd (d. 32/652) and Ibn ʿAbbās, who laid down the foundation for exegetes
and jurists,28 even staunch followers of traditionalist and normative practices do
not shy away from lauding the use of a skill to which they occasionally refer as
istinbāṭ, here meaning a correct and constructive application of wise interpreta-
tive skill.
And yet, it is significant that notwithstanding the overall approval of istinbāṭ,
the space allowed for an individual enterprise of interpreting scripture and its
practical and legal implications is marginal. In practice, within the limits of the
canonical sources of knowledge, personal enterprise is hardly accounted for or
allowed.29 This, as will be shown in what follows, is in clear distinction to
the Ṣūfī vision of what al-Suhrawardī describes as the “countless faces of
­understanding” – the phrase elicited from his words for the title of this chapter.

Mustanbaṭāt: Ṣūfī exegetical insights according to al-Sarrāj

The most comprehensive discussion of istinbāṭ in Ṣūfī literature can be found in
al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ. Al-Khargūshī’s compilation, too, contains a chapter
on Ṣūfī insightful interpretations of verses and traditions, which he names
mustanbaṭāt; but whereas al-Khargūshī merely brings together Ṣūfī dicta on
istinbāṭ, al-Sarrāj goes further, seeking to clarify the nature and characteristics
of this exegetical practice in its Ṣūfī context. In the section titled Kitāb
al-Mustanbaṭāt, al-Sarrāj offers the following definition:

Mustanbaṭāt are what men of understanding (ahl al-fahm) who have

attained truth (mutaḥaqqiqūn) extract [from the sacred text]. [They derive
it] by being in accord with God’s Book concerning what is explicit and
what is implicit in it; by walking in the footsteps of God’s Messenger, peace
be upon him, inwardly and outwardly; and by acts of worship [inspired] by
it, which they perform in their exteriors and interiors.30

From the outset, al-Sarrāj presents here a different epistemology from the one
we have seen so far: to him, true understanding is neither the product of
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   303
­deductive–analogical reasoning (raʾy, naẓar, qiyās), nor of a blind acceptance
(taqlīd) of authoritative pronouncements, nor of consensus (ijmāʿ); it is the out-
come of a devotional adherence to scripture and tradition to which inner work is
added. Thus, for inspirational exegesis to materialize, an inner–outer harmonization
at all levels of worship is called for. A devotional programme is the prerequisite
to attaining a higher and truer kind of knowledge, which, in its turn, intensifies
the practical aspects of devotion. With al-Sarrāj, we are entering the arena of
exclusive mystical epistemology, in which meaningful insights (mustanbaṭāt)
into Qurʾānic verses or prophetic traditions are given by hints and allusions
whose deciphering is the domain of a select few only. Even the ʿulamāʾ (reli-
gious scholars), who are revered by the entire nation, are excluded from such
knowledge unless it is granted to them by God’s grace. Al-Sarrāj writes:

When they [the people of understanding] worship [God] according to what

they know, God bequeaths to them (warrathahum) the knowledge of what
they do not know, that is, the knowledge of allusion, the knowledge of the
bequeathed acts of worship (ʿilm mawārīth al-aʿmāl); God reveals it to the
hearts of His pure and chosen ones. It contains hidden meanings, concealed
subtleties and secrets, wondrous sciences and rare portions of wisdom [con-
cerning the] meanings of the Qurʾān and the reports concerning God’s Mes-
senger; [and all these] according to their [mystical] states, their moments [of
mystical experiences] and the purity of their remembrances [of God].31

If we surmise that al-Sarrāj is endowing istinbāṭ with an added meaning in a

way that could justify Nwyia’s conclusion that it is a particular Ṣūfī designation
(see Introduction), we shall soon see that, effectively and across the board,
istinbāṭ remains, even for al-Sarrāj, a general hermeneutical act of drawing out,
reading into, explicating, extrapolating – whether by Ṣūfīs or others, and
whether by means of speculation, canonization of meanings, insight, or by way
of divine inspiration. This transpires, for example, from the following passage:

The jurists and scholars in the cities of Islam have a ready stock of widespread
insights (mustanbaṭāt mashhūra) on Qurʾānic verses and on explicit reports
[concerning the Prophet], upon which they draw in polemical exchanges with
one another over controversial issues […]. So it is also with theologians and
people of rational speculation (ahl al-kalām wa-l-naẓar). Their rational argu-
ments, which are also insights (mustanbaṭāt), are approved and accepted by
their associates … However, far better than these are the insights
(mustanbaṭāt) of the men of [mystical] knowledge32 and those who draw close
to God through supererogatory acts of worship, the people of ultimate truths.
[To them, insights] are the result of knowledge, verification, sincerity in their
acts of self exertion, self-disciplining and [voluntary] worship.33

Clearly, for al-Sarrāj as well as for others, the term mustanbaṭāt applies to all
categories of commentary-making. The difference between general istinbāṭ and
304   Language and hermeneutics
Ṣūfī istinbāṭ is that the latter is attained after a programme of arduous practices,
designed to cultivate in them the inner, psychological senses, which will allow
them to receive, internalize and broadcast hidden truths. What characterizes
Ṣūfīs’ understanding is that it reflects “their [mystical] states (aḥwāl), their
moments (awqāt) [of mystical experiences] and the purity of their remem-
brances [of God]”. In other words: inasmuch as the levels of the individual
experiences differ, so too do the levels of the individual understanding. There is
not only one accepted understanding; rather, there exist ‘countless faces’ of pos-
sible understandings. Such semantic liberality leaves little room for collective
consensus or normative authority. Each and every aspirant (murīd) who truly
seeks to understand God’s sacred words should strive to purify his/her inner
senses in order to allow the coming about of ‘mystical moments’, namely, the
changing experiences that confer on their recipients different aspects of under-
standing. Such understanding, arising from individual states at any given
moment, is dynamic and fluid. From the perspective of the preparatory pro-
gramme, the murīd is called upon to commit him/herself to practices which go
beyond the prescribed religious duties (farāʾiḍ). One of the first practices that
the aspirant should master in this devotional curriculum is attentive listening
(istimāʿ). When exposed to verses and traditions orally recited, the murīd should
develop the ability to listen attentively.34 Since mystical understanding follows
the practice of listening, al-Sarrāj devotes several sections of the Kitāb al-Lumaʿ
to discussing this practice.35

The practice of listening (istimāʿ) that leads

to mystical understanding
The nature and method of correct listening occupies a central place in Ṣūfī
­literature, especially in the context of discussing Qurʾānic verses. As we shall
see, listening in the Ṣūfī context is not merely a sensory or mental act, but a con-
templative practice. This practice, if correctly performed, may lead to a mystical
experience; the mystical experience, in turn, may lead to a direct understanding
of God’s words, an immediate understanding that bypasses and transcends exter-
nal exegetical mediation. This approach is borne out by Qurʾānic verses. Central
among them is Q. 50:37: Surely in that there is a reminder to him who has a
heart, or will give ear being a witness. Even a cursory scrutiny of the key words
in this verse – ‘reminder’ (dhikrā), ‘heart’ (qalb), ‘giving ear’ (ilqāʾ al-samʿ)
and ‘witness’ (shahīd) – illuminate why many Ṣūfī authors and compilers chose
it as their starting point in discussing the ethical, didactic and mystical compon-
ents of Ṣūfī exegesis. Remembrance, the heart, attentiveness and witnessing – all
allude to contemplative practices that form the bedrock of the Ṣūfī tradition.
Our survey of some of these authors begins, as is chronologically fit, with
al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) and his Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq
Allāh (Watchful Observation of God’s Duties).36 Al-Muḥāsibī, an early author
from Baghdād, developed a psychological–ethical doctrine which lays out a sys-
tematic programme of self-scrutiny and self-improvement as a prerequisite for
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   305
attaining accomplished worship. Throughout the ages, Ṣūfīs have adopted his
psychological–ethical precepts and terminology and have elaborated on them in
many treatises and compilations. Al-Muḥāsibī’s fundamental distinction
between ‘the worship of the limbs’ (aʿmāl al-jawāriḥ) and ‘the worship of the
hearts’ (aʿmāl al-qulūb) had far-reaching repercussions also for Jewish seekers
in the Middle Ages.37 The introduction to his book is in the form of a dialogue
between teacher and disciple. First and foremost, the teacher/author demands of
his disciple full attentiveness: ‘Before I answer your questions, I urge you to
listen carefully (aḥuththuka ʿalā ḥusn al-istimāʿ), so that you may gain under-
standing of all that God asks of you.’38 Full attentiveness implies not only listen-
ing with one’s ears, he says, but also with one’s heart and mind; it corresponds
to the disciple’s earnest willingness to internalise the master’s explanations and
answers. The proof-text for al-Muḥāsibī’s directive is the aforementioned verse,
Q. 50:37. As for qalb (heart), the exegetes, says al-Muḥāsibī, equate it with ʿaql
(intellect).39 For the interpretation of ‘witness’ (shahīd), he invokes Mujāhid b.
Jabr al-Makkī (d. c.100/722), a Companion and early exegete,40 who interprets it
as ‘one whose heart is present’ (shāhid al-qalb),41 who ‘does not converse with
his self at all’ (lā yuḥaddithu nafsahu bi-shayʾ) and ‘whose heart is not absent
[due to inattentiveness]’ (wa-laysa bi-ghāʾib al-qalb).42 To these interpretations
al-Muḥāsibī adds:

He who listens to God’s Book, or to a word of wisdom, or to a portion of

knowledge, or to a piece of counsel, yearning for God while abstaining from
conversing with his self, [concentrating] his attention and allowing his heart
to see what he hears, such a one will derive counsel and remembrances [from
the words he hears], for they are God’s words.43 God described the believers
[as listeners] and commanded them [to listen] saying: My servants who give
ear to the Word and follow the fairest of it. Those are they whom God has
guided; those – they are men possessed of minds.
(Q. 39:18)44

The first practical prerequisite, then, for attaining true understanding in any
learning process is listening with complete attentiveness to what is related, with-
out being distracted by thoughts or inner chatter.
Moving on chronologically, we turn again to al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ and
to his discussion of the value of attentive listening and the ranks of those who
master it. Like al-Muḥāsibī, al-Sarrāj also dwells on Q. 50:37 and Q. 39:18. At
the end of a chapter titled ‘The ascending order of those who listen to God’s
speech and their ranks according to their acceptance of [God’s] speech’ (Bāb
dhikr tafāwut al-mustamiʿīn khiṭāb Allāh taʿālā wa-darajātihim fī qubūl
al-khiṭāb), al-Sarrāj invokes Q. 39:18 and queries the meaning of the phrase
[they] follow the fairest of it. ‘Surely,’ he says, ‘all of it is fair!’ Then he answers
his own rhetorical question: ‘To follow the fairest of it (aḥsanahu) relates to
those wondrous things which, during attentive listening, when one lends his ear
with understanding and insight (al-fahm wa’l-istinbāṭ), are revealed to the
306   Language and hermeneutics
hearts.’45 Al-Sarrāj introduces here a new interpretative dimension: that of the
wondrous, the mystical and the revelatory. ‘To follow the fairest of it’, therefore,
refers not only to normative-ethical principles, which, customarily, the adjective
‘ḥasan’ (agreeable, fine, proper) denotes, but rather to the transcendental-­
experiential sphere, which may be attained in these states of sincere attentive-
ness. Such a signification is bound up, no doubt, with the special implication of
the verbal noun iḥsān in Ṣūfī vocabulary. According to Ṣūfīs, in the canonical
triad islām – īmān (faith) – iḥsān, iḥsān signifies the inner, noble level of
­worship. Iḥsān, in fact, is that superior dimension that marks Ṣūfīs as God’s
chosen intimates. As is well known, this triad is borne out by a ḥadīth, according
to which the Prophet Muḥammad is called by the angel Gabriel to clarify the
meanings of these three aspects of worship. When it comes to iḥsān, the Prophet
says: ‘[Iḥsān means] to worship God as if you see Him; for even if you do not
see Him, He sees you.’46 Al-Sarrāj is evidently making use here of the nexus of
aḥsan and iḥsān in order to depict the special function of mystical listening as a
prologue to an extraordinary intimate relationship with God.
Al-Sarrāj goes on to discuss the sphere of mystical awareness in more detail
in the following chapter, titled ‘Explaining the insight [that comes from] attentive
listening and presence with reflection during the recitation and the understanding
of the divine speech’ (Bāb fī sharḥ istinbāṭ ilqāʾ al-samʿ wa’l-ḥuḍūr bi’l-tadab-
bur ʿinda al-tilāwa wa fahm al-khiṭāb). Here al-Sarrāj offers, in the name of Abū
Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 279/899), another early Ṣūfī from Baghdād, an elaborate
exegesis of the Qurʾānic expression lending ear (ilqāʾ al-samʿ) in the context of
the Ṣūfī phrase ‘presence during listening’ (ḥuḍūr ʿinda al-istimāʿ).47 According
to al-Kharrāz, unwavering attention is a practice which, progressively, leads to
transcendental experiences:

In the first stage of attentive listening to [the recitation of] the Qurʾān, you
hear it as if the Prophet, peace be upon him, were reading it before you.
Then you ascend to a higher stage and hear it as if it were spoken by the
angel Gabriel reciting it to the Prophet, peace be upon him […] Then you
ascend to an even higher stage than this and you hear the words as if spoken
by Truth […], as if you hear them from God; which is why [it says]: ‘Ḥāʾ
Mīm. The sending down of the Book is from God the All-mighty, the
All-knowing.
(Q. 40:1–2)48

Ṣūfī istinbāṭ, al-Sarrāj’s writing suggests, is the outcome of such deep and
absorbed listening; it comes about as a form of understanding which emanates
from experiences that transcend intellectual, or even intuitive, knowledge, and
which derives from a direct mystical ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ of the divine unseen
(ghayb): ‘The interpretation of all this’, says al-Sarrāj, ‘is understood and drawn
out (wa-sharḥ hādhā kullihi mafhūm wa-mustanbaṭ) from God’s words: [those]
who believe in the unseen (Q. 2:3).’49 Such awareness is presented here as the
supreme goal of ritual listening that may lead to istinbāṭ.
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   307
The social, epistemological and normative ramifications of an exegetical act
that is based on individual experiences are far reaching. Indeed, the ambivalence
and concern as regards personal experiences, and especially as regards the valid-
ity of the understanding that these experiences emanate, can be witnessed not
only in scathing non-Ṣūfī sources but also in the Ṣūfī literature itself.50 No doubt,
exegesis which stems from an exposure to revelatory inspiration can be seen by
some as provocative and subversive and by others as deceptive and illusory. The
anxiety which it elicits has contributed not only to bouts of admonition and criti-
cism in non-Ṣūfī literature, but also, within Ṣūfī study circles, to the develop-
ment of pedagogical frameworks in which one of the functions of the
authoritative masters is to keep a tight rein over their overly ardent students. The
caution and watchfulness which such anxiety has produced are well reflected
throughout al-Sarrāj’s compilation.51
Attentive listening and its implications are taken up also by the seventh/thir-
teenth-century Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī. He dedicates to it the second chapter of
his important work ʿAwārif al-maʿārif (Gifts of Awarenesses) and titles this
chapter ‘On singling out Ṣūfīs as those who possess fine listening’ (Fī takhṣīṣ
al-ṣūfiyya bi-ḥusn al-istimāʿ). Weaving together verses, traditions and Ṣūfī say-
ings with his own analyses, comments and teaching, al-Suhrawardī’s discourse
on the act of listening to sacred texts is a masterful tapestry. The chapter opens
with a sweeping statement: ‘The foundation of every good thing is fine listening’
(asās kull khayr ḥusn al-istimāʿ).52 To this, al-Suhrawardī juxtaposes the first
part of the verse If God had known of any good in them He would have made
them hear (Q. 8:23), which he cites an unnamed Ṣūfī as having explicated as
follows: ‘The sign of good listening is that God’s servant listens while curbing
his own qualities and attributes; he listens in truth to the Truth.’53 For
al-Suhrawardī, as for al-Sarrāj, attentive listening to the Qurʾān entails blocking
the qualities of the personality while committing one’s self to face God’s words
in a pure state of presence. Such mystical contemplation is the prerequisite for
truly understanding God’s words, for internalising them and for applying them
correctly in the sphere of religious activity. The Ṣūfīs, al-Suhrawardī intimates,
regard each verse as ‘one of the [many] seas of knowledge’. These seas, con-
tained in each and every verse, encompass all types of knowledge, external and
internal, plain and hidden. Like his predecessors, al-Suhrawardī, too, derives the
call for proper attention from Q. 50:37, with which we began this section. The
verse and its mystical-exegetical implications occupy most of the second chapter
of ʿAwārif al-maʿārif. In order to elucidate these implications, al-Suhrawardī
invokes the interpretative sayings of earlier Ṣūfīs54 such as al-Shiblī (d.
334/945): ‘The lesson of the Qurʾān [is given] to him whose heart is present
with God and who is not distracted from Him for even a second.’55 He likewise
cites Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh (d. 258/871) who says: ‘There are two hearts: a heart that
is so full of worldly matters that when confronted with a matter relating to obe-
dience [to God], it knows not what to do, so immersed is it in worldly matters;
and a heart that is so full of next-world matters that when confronted with a
worldly matter, it knows not what to do, so suffused is it with the next world.’56
308   Language and hermeneutics
Another Ṣūfī, al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr [al-Ḥallāj] (d. 309/922) says: ‘[The lesson of
the Qurʾān is given] to him who has a heart into which nothing enters but the
vision of God.’57 All these sayings revolve around the heart – the organ in
which, according to Ṣūfī anthropology, the vision of the divine worlds takes
place and which is therefore the seat of mystical understanding.58 As we have
seen, al-Muḥāsibī (as well as other early Muslim mystics) identifies heart (qalb)
with intellect (ʿaql), an identification that can be traced back to pre-Islamic, late
antique sources.59 However, from the third/ninth century onwards, most Ṣūfīs
were inclined towards a patently non-intellectual approach regarding knowledge
in which the heart was perceived as both surpassing the intellect and antagonis-
tic to it. Nonetheless, al-Muḥāsibī’s works and ideas have been at the foundation
of Ṣūfī mystical psychology, in which the heart occupies a pivotal position.
Indeed, the second chapter of al-Suhrawardī’s ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, which we
are consulting, unmistakably bears the hallmark of al-Muḥāsibī’s teaching. In
describing the distinction between the different kinds of listeners, both
al-Muḥāsibī and al-Suhrawardī corroborate their teachings by means of a well-
known parable culled from the New Testament: The Parable of the Sower.60 In
this parable, a sower sowed seeds in three locations: on the road, on rocky
ground and among thorns. In all these locations, the seed did not survive.
However, when the seed was sown on fertile ground, it made solid roots and
yielded many folds of grain. In Kitāb al-Riʿāya, as well as in ʿAwārif al-maʿārif,
this New Testament parable is cited almost verbatim.61 Al-Muḥāsibī cites it in
the name of ‘one of the sages’ (baʿḍ al-ḥukamāʾ), who devised it, as it were, in
order to exemplify the practice of correct listening.62 Al-Suhrawardī, too, pre-
sents it as ‘a parable fashioned by one of the sages to portray the different ways
in which people listen’ (wa-qad maththala baʿḍ al-ḥukamāʾ tafāwut al-nās fī’l-
istimāʿ).63 Although al-Suhrawardī makes no mention of al-Muḥāsibī, the similar
presentation and the almost identical text and context suggest that he may have
consulted al-Muḥāsibī’s work. Discussing the infiltration and reception of Chris-
tian literary sources in early Muslim literature is beyond the scope of this
chapter.64 Suffice it to say that, in all likelihood, Christian and other late antique
traditions and dicta filtered into al-Muḥāsibī’s writing (as well as into the writ-
ings of later authors) via ascetic and pietistic circles, as well as via Arabic adab
(belletristic) compilations. The literary genre known as adab absorbed pre-
Islamic traditions on a large variety of topics, among which Christian traditions,
especially those deriving from monastic and ascetic sources, were widely and
overtly collected.65 What is noteworthy is that both al-Muḥāsibī and
al-Suhrawardī make use of the parable for the practical lessons that can be
drawn from it. For both of them, the parable becomes part of a didactic portrayal
of the nature of true listening – listening which becomes the fertile soil for an in-
depth understanding of the words of God.
In keeping with his role as a Ṣūfī master, al-Suhrawardī concludes that true
attention to the words of God, in which the ear hears and the heart sees and which
generates understanding and action, is the listening practised by Ṣūfīs. On  this
point, al-Suhrawardī goes further than al-Muḥāsibī. While the latter emphasizes
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   309
the didactic-ethical implications of listening and understanding, al-Suhrawardī,
like al-Sarrāj before him, emphasizes their mystical implications, namely, the
divine inspiration and revelation stimulated by them, whereby the heart witnesses
the hidden meanings of the words of God and the prophetic traditions directly,
with no intermediary. But for those who have surpassed the bounds of the mys-
tical experience, this revelatory inspiration, according to al-Suhrawardī, is the
platform from which an even higher level of understanding can be attained.

Listening – understanding – witnessing

As is evinced by dicta of earlier Ṣūfīs, the sought-for understanding is complex:
it encompasses all the countless meanings which are contained within the divine
word, external as well as internal. Such an understanding captures, in a single
moment, all that can be gleaned from the divine word. The seeker who achieves
such an understanding is not only ‘listening’ to the spoken words of God, but is
also ‘witnessing’ the divine realm. True listening, suggests al-Suhrawardī,
entails witnessing (mushāhada): ‘The Ṣūfī’s heart is empty of all transient
things; he “lends his ear” and allows his eyes to witness. He hears the audible,
sees the visible and witnesses the witnessed.’66 Thus, in deep attentive states,
witnessing is merged with listening, and may even pre-determine it: ‘As they
witness’, writes al-Suhrawardī, ‘they also listen’.67 All this, hermeneutically, is
dependent on Q. 50:37, the verse that has served as the spring board for previous
discussions. In order to explain the term dhikrā (reminder) in the verse,
al-Suhrawardī cites the Ṣūfī Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. c.320/932),68 who emphas-
izes the transcendent and timeless existence of those mystics who hear and wit-
ness God’s words without mediation. Al-Wāsiṭī says:

[As for] reminder, it is a reminder for special people (li-qawm makhṣūṣīn),

not for everyone. As for those who have a heart, the verse alludes to those
who have a heart in the eternal world. They are hinted at by another verse:
Why, is he who was dead, and We gave him life.

(Q. 6:122)69

In his interpretation, al-Wāsiṭī joins Q. 50:37 with Q. 6:122, which adds the new
life motif to the in-depth process of mystical understanding. A pattern emerges
here: attentive listening > understanding > < witnessing > new life on a higher
platform. But, according to another statement by al-Wāsiṭī, at the higher plat-
form the epistemological process may become obstructed: contemplative
­witnessing exerts such a powerful psychological impact that it numbs and cir-
cumvents understanding: ‘Witnessing brings about amazement while conceal-
ment (istitār) brings about understanding, because when God most High reveals
Himself to a thing, the thing submits to Him and humbles itself before Him.’70
According to al-Wāsiṭī, then, deep mystical revelations do not go hand in hand
with understanding, because witnessing brings about a cognitive paralysis. Only
310   Language and hermeneutics
when the experience passes, in the ensuing state of divine concealment, may
understanding return.
Al-Suhrawardī disagrees. Wāsiṭī’s contention, he says, is true only in relation
to people (aqwām) who are unable to withstand the intensity of the mystical
experience. In deep states, the witnessing-listener may indeed become over-
powered by mystical intoxication (sukr al-ḥāl) and even by loss of consciousness,
a state known as ghayba. In this state, the contents of the words listened to can
become submerged in the mystical witnessing and no room is left for under-
standing (fahm). Such a listener, says al-Suhrawardī, is prone to talwīn – the
oscillation from one intense state to another. But there exists another kind of lis-
teners, for whom ‘witnessing’ and ‘understanding’ can be maintained in
tandem.71 Al-Suhrawardī names such people arbāb al-tamkīn, namely, those
who possess balance and stability, the antithesis of talwīn. For the masters of
tamkīn, listening and witnessing do not cancel each one out; their separate exist-
ences continue side by side and they confer their different wisdoms and benefits
upon each other: ‘listening has its wisdom and benefit, and witnessing has its
wisdom and benefit.’72 Those who listen from the position of stability and
­permanence – attributes which characterize the most sincere followers of the
Ṣūfī path,73 do so in a state of sobriety (ṣaḥw) and their listening is commensu-
rate to their understanding. Moreover, this kind of understanding takes the form
of an intimate discourse with God; that is to say, it emanates from God directly:
‘The place of understanding is where discourse (muḥādatha) and dialogue
(mukālama) [with God] are located.’74 Consequently, al-Suhrawardī explains the
revival motif in Q. 6:122 as referring to this type of sober and enduring under-
standing, the product of direct divine inspiration (ilhām). Such understanding
requires ‘an existential receptacle’ (wiʿāʾ wujūdī), a special supra-sensory organ,
to be located within the physical body, by which the divine inspiration that
yields understanding can be received and contained. Such a subtle receptacle is
created for the masters of tamkīn, those who have transcended the state of intox-
ication and annihilation, and it is this to which, according to al-Suhrawardī, the
verse alludes as a new, or second, creation. In the state of sobriety (ṣaḥw) and
permanence (baqāʾ), these masters awaken to a new life:75

In the state of sobriety and stability, witnessing does not obliterate hearing,
because the hearer holds on to the forelock of the mystical state. He under-
stands what is spoken by means of an existential receptacle that is designed
for this purpose. Understanding is the locus to which inspiration and listen-
ing descend; they require an existential receptacle. This existence is granted
to the master of tamkīn and is created for him as a second creation in the
state of sobriety. The existence of such a one, who has crossed over from
the state of annihilation (fanāʾ) to the state of subsistence (baqāʾ), does not
wane when the lights of witnessing shine.76

Evidently, for al-Suhrawardī, the process leads from listening to witnessing to

inspiration and thence to an understanding of the divine word – this process
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   311
may, indeed, come to a fruitful conclusion in spite of the intensity of the experience
or its transiency. He clearly belongs among the ‘sober’ Ṣūfīs.
Having established the viability of such an epistemological-mystical process,
he continues his exegetical discussion by following up the motif of the new cre-
ation of this ‘existential receptacle’. He does so by associating Q. 6:122 with
another Qurʾānic verse in which a new life is referred to, Q. 8:24: O believers,
respond to God and the Messenger when He calls you unto that which will give
you life.77 But revival is not the only link that transpires in this juxtaposition.
When citing Q. 8:24, al-Suhrawardī clearly has in mind its adjacent verse,
Q. 8:23, which was one of the triggers for this lengthy discourse on the nature of
true listening: If God had known of any good in them He would have made them
hear. The proximity of these two verses allows al-Suhrawardī to make a seman-
tic link which takes us full circle in clarifying how ‘the foundation of every good
thing is fine listening’: the new life is, in fact, the revival granted to the good lis-
tener. The nature of this new life is described by al-Junayd (d. 297/910), the
leader of the Baghdādī Ṣūfī circle in the third/ninth century: ‘They live eternally
through the Living who has never ceased nor will He ever cease.’78 The new life
eternal, we are made to understand, is neither terrestrial nor life after death, but
the inner, mystical life which is lived in a divine timelessness at the moment of
true listening.
We have witnessed here an exegetical tour de force which al-Suhrawardī con-
ducts in order to convey the significance, and even the magnitude, of the
­practice of attentive listening: it is the proviso not only for the truthfulness and
validity of mystical understanding, but for mystical life itself. But this tour de
force does not end here. From Q. 8:23, the last in the cluster of verses dealing
with listening, understanding and the mystical life, al-Suhrawardī takes up again
Q. 8:24. It is the idiom ‘respond’ (istajībū) which now intrigues him. He cites it
with a commentary by Aḥmad Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. c.309/922), another member of al-
Junayd’s circle and a renowned Qurʾānic exegete,79 who suggests that it should
be understood in four exegetical modes:

Understanding the ‘response’ (istijāba) in this verse is according to four

aspects: first, a response out of unity (ijābat al-tawḥīd); second, a response
out of verification (ijābat al-taḥqīq); third, a response out of surrender
(ijābat al-taslīm); fourth, a response out of approaching closely (ijābat
al-taqrīb).80

This four-level understanding of ‘response’ in Ibn ʿAṭāʾ ‘s interpretation correl-

ates, according to al-Suhrawardī, to a well-known exegetical method, according
to which every Qurʾānic expression should be understood in four different
aspects (wujūh) or interpretative levels: ẓahr – the external or literal aspect; baṭn –
the internal or homiletic aspect; ḥadd – the normative or legalistic aspect; and,
lastly, muṭṭalaʿ – the contemplative summit.81 The tradition that promotes this
fourfold method, according to al-Suhrawardī, was transmitted by Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
(d. 110/728) (and according to some by Ibn Masʿūd), in a chain that goes back
312   Language and hermeneutics
to the Prophet himself. It runs as follows: ‘No verse of the Qurʾān came down
without having both an exterior and an interior. Each word [in it] has a limit
(ḥadd), and each limit has a vantage point (muṭṭalaʿ).’82 The reading and rendi-
tion of the terms employed in the various versions of this tradition are not
straightforward. Especially problematic is the term spelled m-ṭ-l-ʿ, which can be
read either maṭlaʿ (rise, incline) or muṭṭalaʿ (elevated viewing point). According
to Lisān al-ʿarab, followed in Edward W. Lane’s Lexicon, it should probably be
read muṭṭalaʿ, although the reading maṭlaʿ is also attested.83 As for
al-Suhrawardī, whatever his reading, it is obvious that he takes this term to sig-
nify a lofty epistemological position, a vantage point from where God’s words
are observed and contemplated from a position of heightened awareness. Now,
al-Suhrawardī’s exegetical move is to relate the response of Q. 8:24 to both lis-
tening and understanding; they are, after all, the issues at the core of his discus-
sion. ‘The maṭlaʿ/muṭṭalaʿ ‘, he says, ‘is a slope upon which one climbs by virtue
of his awareness of the divine knowledge. Hence, maṭlaʿ/muṭṭalaʿ is the under-
standing [that comes] through God’s illumination, granted to every heart in
accordance with the light that nourishes it.’84
Tying up the different strands of his discourse, al-Suhrawardī has this to say
about the place and meaning of ‘response’ in his scheme:

Response is proportionate to listening; listening is where understanding is;

understanding is proportionate to the awareness of the significance of
speech; awareness of speech is proportionate to the awareness and know-
ledge of the speaker. Understanding has countless faces, because the faces
of [the divine] speech are countless. God most High said: Say, if the sea
were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the Words
of my Lord are spent, though We brought replenishment the like of it
(Q. 18:109). For in each and every word in the Qurʾān God most High has
[multiple] words, which would not dry up even if the sea dried up. The
entire divine speech is but one word from the perspective of the essence of
Divine Unity, while from the perspective of the breadth of everlasting
knowledge, each word is [many] words.85

From an epistemological perspective, this is al-Suhrawardī’s clue, or ‘response’,

to the enigma of unity and multiplicity at the level of mystical understanding.
Although God’s words spring forth from an essential oneness, grasping the
divine speech means allowing it to splinter into countless shards of details, per-
spectives and intuitions, not in proportion to mental capacities but in accordance
with the intensity and measure of the divine light which the heart, or the subtle
organ within the physical heart designated as an ‘existential receptacle’, receives
and can sustain.86 This conclusion is substantiated by the distinction he proposes
between tafsīr and taʾwīl. Tafsīr, al-Suhrawardī says, is a well-bounded and
delineated knowledge hemmed in by the canonical sources, while taʾwīl, the
inner meaning of the verse, is an open-ended knowledge.87 Although its veracity
is measured by its compatibility with the Qurʾān and the Sunna, this knowledge
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   313
is, by definition, fluid and multifaceted and it varies according to the seeker’s
inner state and the degree of his mystical preparedness.88
This, then, is the understanding whose countless faces have inspired the Ṣūfī
masters. If the Ṣūfī is a true ‘master of intent’ (ṣāḥib himma), says
al-Suhrawardī, he is called upon to understand the subtle meanings and fine
nuances hidden in the divine speech from within his heart, where that ‘existen-
tial vessel’, that supra-sensory organ, created purposely for the reception and
accommodation of such understanding, resides. By withdrawing from the world
and by emptying his heart of anything other than God, the ‘master of intent’ sees
each verse from a new vantage point: when he listens to the recited verse, he
sees it and understands it from the countless perspectives that can be viewed at
each of these vantage points. But again, al-Suhrawardī does not stop here: to this
elevated ladder he adds another rung, that of religious activity, which, to him, is
intrinsically associated with the notion of ‘response’. Each new understanding,
he says, breeds a new devotional act. An ongoing feedback is thus constellated
between understanding the divine speech and the response to it by means of reli-
gious acts.
Let us reconsider the scheme drawn above, now comprising the following
stages: attentive listening > understanding > < witnessing cum understanding >
the creation of a new existential receptacle and a new life. All these, as we have
seen, make up the process that leads to a deep, direct and multifaceted under-
standing of the divine word. Here, however, it is reiterated with an additional
rung, which brings the process back to the sphere of normative acts in which,
when understanding is present, the inner dimension is never missing:

Their understanding calls [the Ṣūfīs] to action; action, on its part, brings on
the purity of understanding and the subtlety of contemplation over the
meanings of the divine speech. From understanding, knowledge emerges,
and from knowledge, action. Thus, knowledge and action follow one
another intermittently. Action, at the outset, is the action of the heart; the
action of the heart is not the action of the container [i.e. the body] … when-
ever they carry out one of these actions [of the heart], a [new] knowledge is
revealed to them, and they climb to a new vantage point in terms of under-
standing the verse.89

It would seem that here the process has come full circle and that, through
al-Suhrawardī’s detailed exploration, we have had access to a teaching which is
solid, sober, practical as well as mystical and subtle. But it turns out that this
circle is not watertight. All this process, implies al-Suhrawardī, pertains to mys-
tical understanding that, albeit subtle and elevated, can be encompassed, at least
in states of sobriety, by the mystic’s consciousness. It seems, however, that a
kind of uncertainty creeps into al-Suhrawardī’s analysis. He candidly admits
that, in his claim for sobriety and stability, he may be ignoring an even higher
mystical stage, when listening and contemplation lead to states that are beyond
consciousness, states in which witnessing remains a pure experience of the
314   Language and hermeneutics
divine speaker transcending both description and cognitive understanding. He
writes:

My innermost heart is troubled: perhaps the vantage point does not refer to
grasping the subtle meaning and the concealed secret hidden in the verse
with pure understanding; perhaps it means that, in each verse, at the ele-
vated point, a witnessing occurs of He who speaks the verse. For in each
verse one of God’s attributes and qualities is stored, and when a person
recites and listens to the verses, new divine revelations keep visiting him,
and they become like a mirror announcing He who possesses that awesome
majesty.90

Facing, it seems, anecdotal evidence concerning eminent personalities, and

perhaps personal experience too, the author acknowledges some hesitancy in the
face of the apotheosis of mystical experiences, in which the verses listened to
invoke the divine qualities and attributes as such as objects of witnessing. At
such experiences, he says, the verses become like mirrors through which the
divine qualities and attributes themselves, and, behind them, the divine speaker
Himself, shine. Thus, despite al-Suhrawardī’s previous confident statements, he
concedes the existence of an even higher vantage point at which cognitive par-
alysis, or even loss of consciousness, may ensue.91
Al-Suhrawardī’s in-depth discussion, to sum up, is a dynamic and open-
ended portrayal of what understanding of the Qurʾān implies; it is an under-
standing that is constantly renewed, and whose perspectives are continually
changing. This kind of understanding is not dependent on the interpretations of
people of authority, but on inner work and divine grace. Both inner work and
divine grace take place in the arena of the individual mystic’s inwardness. Inner
work, in particular, is the individual Ṣūfī’s voluntary efforts above and beyond
the canonical duties. They are designed to prepare his interior for the creation
and lodging of that subtle receptacle, the innermost heart, without which the
effects and understandings deriving from the mystical experience cannot become
registered in his constitution. This preparatory work starts with listening, which,
in turn, hones and deepens understanding. In order to withstand the intensity of
the ecstasy that may be engendered by the mystical experience of listening and
witnessing, balance and equilibrium are required. The above notwithstanding,
there are instances in which even the greatest and most accomplished masters of
stability undergo in their contemplation a cognitive annihilation, when the
intensity of the revelatory experience lifts them to the threshold of the divine
presence itself.

Conclusion
This chapter started as an enquiry into the meaning and function of istinbāṭ, the
term that was suggested by Paul Nwyia as specifying Ṣūfī Qurʾān exegesis. In
the process of exploring the material at hand, it became clear that the term
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   315
should be considered from a wider, non-Ṣūfī, platform as well. In addition, a
practice associated with exegesis came to the fore, a practice which, in terms of
Ṣūfī studies, is often ignored: the practice of listening (istimāʿ), without which,
we learn, true understanding of sacred texts cannot be gained. The three main
Ṣūfī sources from which I have gathered the relevant material afford an oppor-
tunity to follow and trace the intense relationship that exists for the Ṣūfī authors
between the art of listening and the way in which an inner mode of under-
standing is developed. This understanding is subtle, mystical and individual,
while also devotional and practical. Some general conclusions of this exploration
can be summed up as follows:
It is possible that in the fourth/tenth century, during the consolidation of Ṣūfī
doctrine, language and literature, and as part of the development of Ṣūfī self-
awareness, an attempt was sporadically made to introduce a term by which Ṣūfī
exegetical method could be distinguished from non-Ṣūfī ones. The use by
al-Sarrāj and al-Khargūshī of derivatives of istinbāṭ alludes to the possibility of
such an attempt.92 The lexical associations of istinbāṭ with an in-depth mode of
understanding may lie at the background of such a conceivable endeavour to
introduce this term into Ṣūfī terminology.93 It may have also been facilitated by
the generally positive and non-polemical use of istinbāṭ by non-Ṣūfī authors.
Some well-known orthodox scholars employed istinbāṭ in keen appraisals of the
wisdom with which gifted and revered exegetes explained difficult verses. But in
the last resort, if such a conscious attempt did occur, it was not successful:
istinbāṭ did not take root as an exclusive Ṣūfī term. Nwyia’s statement, there-
fore, should be qualified. Although testified in Ṣūfī literature, istinbāṭ has never
become a technical term denoting Ṣūfī exegesis as such, distinguishing it from
other, non-Ṣūfī, exegetical methods.
Modern scholarly literature too bears witness, ex silentio, to the fact that
istinbāṭ has not been integrated into the exegetical literature as a technical term
in its own right.94 Nwyia’s statement can, perhaps, be understood in the context
of the work of Reynold A. Nicholson. In the introduction to his The Mystics of
Islam, Nicholson discusses the term and explains it as ‘a sort of intuitive deduc-
tion; the mysterious inflow of divinely revealed knowledge into hearts made
pure by repentance and filled with the thought of God, and the outflow of that
knowledge upon the interpreting tongue’.95 It is noteworthy that Nicholson’s
monograph was published in 1914, the year in which his edition of al-Sarrāj’s
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ also appeared.96 Possibly, out of close familiarity with the text
he had been editing, in which, as we saw, istinbāṭ and its derivatives are pro-
fusely represented and discussed, Nicholson referred to this term in the introduc-
tion of his monograph, thereby paving the way for Nwyia’s overstated
conclusion.
Beyond the terminology, however, in scrutinising sections from
al-Muḥāsibī’s Kitāb al-Riʿāya, as well as chapters from al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb
al-Lumaʿ and al-Suhrawardī’s ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, the authors’ assiduous
attempts at combining an orthodox reading of the Qurʾān with a mystical experi-
ential listening to it can be discerned. These attempts at reconciling the mystical
316   Language and hermeneutics
with the normative are not, in my opinion, merely apologetic, as they are often
portrayed in the scholarly literature. Rather, they reflect the wish to prescribe,
alongside the traditional canon, another canon which outlines the inner life,
without which, according to them, a comprehensive understanding of the sacred
verses and the duties to which they urge cannot be attained. This coming
together of the exoteric and the esoteric can be summed up in the words of Ibn
ʿAṭāʾ who, in commenting on yastanbiṭūnahu of Q. 4:83, the singular occurrence
of the root n-b-ṭ in the Qurʾān, succinctly states:

If only [those who listened to the Qurʾān] in seeking [God] would take the
path of the Sunna and the way of the dignitaries, they would be raised to
high ranks of faith, in which the stages of in-depth understanding (maqāmāt
al-istinbāṭ) and the path of [divine] revelations dwell.97

The sources examined claim unanimously that a proper understanding of the Book
of God is contingent on the interplay between the meticulous observance of the
religious law sanctified by tradition and consensus on the one hand, and, on the
other hand, on the development of individual inner abilities. When the mystics
consciously attain spiritual heights through attentiveness to and contemplation of
the words of God, they are said to resemble the Prophet Muḥammad when divine
revelations came down upon him; or the Prophet’s Companions, who claimed to
see God in every situation and in every place. What the mystic sees and hears at
such times is unique and boundless. According to the Ṣūfī authors, the special
epistemological value that such understandings possess derives from being wit-
nessed directly in the vicinity of the divine. Although these countless and con-
stantly renewed understandings do not constitute absolute truth, they do expose the
cognitive absorption of, and hence the licence to broadcast, the multifaceted divine
aspects which are revealed to the innermost heart of the attentive listener.

Notes
  1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Annabel Keeler and Sajjād Rizvi
(eds), The Spirit and the Letter: Approaches to the Esoteric Interpretations of the
Qurʾan (Oxford: Oxford University Press and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2016),
51–85.
  2 “… quand les soufis eux-mêmes parlent de leur méthode, ils ne l’appellent ni tafsīr ni
taʾwīl mais istinbāṭ mot d’origine coranique, préféré par eux pour mieux se distinguer
des autres” (… when Sufis themselves discuss their [exegetical] method, they do not
name it tafsīr or taʾwīl but istinbāṭ: a word of Qurʾānic origin which they prefer in order
to distinguish them from others); see Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mys-
tique: nouvel essai sur le lexique technique des mystiques Musulmans (Beirut: Dar
­el-Machreq, 1970), 34. See also Nwiya, Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musul-
mans: Shaqīq al-Balḫī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Niffarī (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1973 [1986]), 25–6.
  3 See Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fi’l-taṣawwuf, ed. R.A. Nicholson (Leiden:
Brill, 1914), 105–19.
  4 See Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī, Tahdhīb al-asrār, ed. Bassām Muḥammad Bārūd (Abu
Dhabī: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1999), 198–212.
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   317
  5 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, “Interpreting the Difficult Terms Current in Ṣūfī
Idiom” (Bāb fī sharḥ al-alfāẓ al-mushkila al-jāriya fī kalām al-ṣūfiyya), 333–74 –
istinbāṭ and its derivatives do not appear in the list of such terms. Cf., however, ibid.,
“Interpreting Bāb fī sharḥ istinbāṭ ilqāʾ al-samʿ “, 80–1; also ibid., Bāb … min ṭarīq
al-fahm wa’l-istinbāṭ, 90–2 and especially ibid., the section titled Kitāb
al-Mustanbaṭāt comprising five chapters, 105–19. On the special place of al-Sarrāj
and Kitāb al-Lumaʿ in modern research, see this chapter’s Conclusion.
  6 See, for example, Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1956), s.v. “n-b-ṭ”.
  7 Ibid.
  8 See Toufic Fahd, “Riyāfa”, EI2, Vol. 8, 562; see also Toufic Fahd, “Un traité des eaux
dans al-Filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya: hydrogéologie, hydraulique agricole, hydrologie”, in La
Persia nel Medioevo (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 1971), 277–326. Note,
however, the translation of a passage from the same book in J. Hämeen-Anttila, The Last
Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Waḥshiyya and his Nabatean Agriculture (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 204:
“… it has come down to us through some discovery (istinbāṭ) which we made
(wajadnāhu) through the use of reason (ʿuqūl) …” – with thanks to Guy Ron-Gilboa.
  9 In discussing the term firāsa, Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 279/899) says: “A mustanbiṭ is
one who always observes the hidden; from such a one nothing is either hidden or con-
cealed”, see Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf (Beirut: Dār
al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, n.d.), Bāb al-firāsa, 106.
10 See Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 403ff.
11 See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, s.v. “Nabaṭ”, Vol. 7, 411; cf. Toufic Fahd, “Nabaṭ
(2)”, EI2, Vol. 7, 834–8; Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn
Waḥshiyya and his Nabatean Agriculture, Vol. 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 16.
12 Lisān al-ʿarab, 410; see also Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, eds Aḥmad
Shams al-Dīn and Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn, Vol. 9 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,
1411/1990), 159.
13 Qurʾānic quotations in English are based on Arthur J. Arberry (trans.), The Koran
Interpreted (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955 and later).
14 On this verse, see Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʿān al-ʿaẓīm, ed. Muṣṭafā al-Sayyid
Muḥammad (Cairo: Muʾassasat Qurṭuba, 1421/2000); also Abū ʿUbayda (d.
210/825), Majāz al-Qurʾān, Vol. 1 (Cairo, 1374–1381/1954–1962), 134; also the tra-
dition concerning the circumstances in which the verse came down and the declara-
tion of the second caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 634–44), who reportedly transmitted
the tradition: ‘I interpreted this matter by means of istinbāṭ’, Ibn al-Ḥajjāj Muslim,
Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (Kitāb al-Ṭalāq, 30), ed. Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Vol. 2 (Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ
al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, 1374/1955), 1105–8.
15 See Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār
al-Fikr, 1408/1988), 181. Cf. the usage adopted by Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038)
in concluding the chapters on The Generations of the Companions and Successors:
Know that those mentioned above … among humans, they are similar to quarries
and precious stones whose value and ranks are known only to the extractors [of
treasures] (al mustanbiṭūn), to [deep-sea] divers, and to the dignitaries among
leaders and men of distinction, for they were the pillars and foundation of the
religion.
See Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ, Vol. 6 (Beirut:
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1418 h/1997), 160. For a comprehensive discussion of the
Qurʾānic expression and its exegetical and legalistic implications, see Rāzī, Mafātīḥ
al-ghayb, Vol. 9, 158–61.
16 See ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Jurjānī, Kitāb al-Taʿrīfāt, ed. Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī (Beirut:
Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1405/1985), 216, no. 1098.
17 See Ḥājji Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa’l-funūn, eds Muḥammad
Sharaf al-Dīn et al., Vol. 1 (Istanbul: Wikālat al-Maʿārif, 1360/1941), 110; cf. Ibn
318   Language and hermeneutics
Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, ed. ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Wāfī, Vol. 3 (Cairo: Dār Nahḍat
Miṣr, 1979[?]), 1046 (on the science of fiqh): “When laws are extrapolated from these
proofs, this [act] is called fiqh”; and later: “afterwards, the cities of Islam grew […]
[and the method] of extrapolation (istinbāṭ) was consolidated, and [the knowledge] of
jurisprudence matured into a profession and science”; see also Joseph Schacht, The
Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), 1, 134 et
passim; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1964), circa 60. On questions relating to legalistic terminology, see the compre-
hensive monograph by Bernard Weiss on al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233): Bernard G. Weiss,
The Search for God’s Law: Islamic Jurisprudence in Writings of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī
(Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1992), Introduction, circa 24. On
istinbāṭ as a deductive method adopted by mutakallimūn of the Ḥanafi legal school,
see Abū ’l-Layth al-Samarqandī, Sharʿ al-Fiqh al-absaṭ li-abī Ḥanīfa (Tokyo: Insti-
tute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1995), 69, line 195 –
for the last reference I am grateful to Etan Kohlberg. Note also the use of the term by
early grammarians: see Michael G. Carter, “The Struggle for Authority: A
­Re-examination of the Baṣran and Kūfan Debate”, in Tradition and Innovation: Norm
and Deviation in Arabic and Semitic Linguistics, eds Lutz Edzard and Mohammed
Nekroumi (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), 65.
18 See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, Vol. 3, 1051.
19 As far as I could ascertain, the term istinbāṭ does not appear in the indices of the fol-
lowing textbooks: Schacht, An Introduction; Bernard G. Weiss, ed., Studies in Islamic
Legal Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2002); nor is there mention of it in the table of contents
of Weiss, The Search for God’s Law. It is noteworthy that Āmidī himself, the subject
of Weiss’s monograph (see The Search for God’s Law: Islamic Jurisprudence in
Writings of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī), when discussing qiyās, does use the term istinbāṭ
and its derivatives; see, for example, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl
al-aḥkām, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir, Vol. 3 (Cairo: Zakariyya ʿA. Yūsuf,
1928/1345–1347), 87 et passim. The term is also missing from the index of Josef van
Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1991–1995) and from the index of Christopher Melchert, The Formation of
the Sunni Schools of Law (Leiden: Brill, 1997). This absence is noteworthy, espe-
cially vis-à-vis the extensive and systematic discussion of istinbāṭ in Rāzī, Mafātīḥ
al-ghayb, Vol. 10, 139–61.
20 On the complexity of the term taʾwīl and its evolution from a synonym of tafsīr to a
term denoting an exegesis inclined towards allegorization, see I. Poonawala,
“Taʾwīl”, EI2, Vol. 10, 390; see also [nn 28 and 88]. On the development and com-
plexities of the term qiyās, see Monique Bernard, “Ḳiyās”, EI2, Vol. 5, 238.
21 On fiqh in the sense of knowledge and understanding, see Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān
al-ʿarab, Vol. 13, 522, s.v.; for an etymological discussion of fiqh that implies an
understanding by which what is hidden becomes exposed, see al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī,
Nawādir al-uṣūl fī aḥādīth al-rasūl, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿUmayra, Vol. 1 (Beirut:
Dār al-Jīl, 1992), 135–7; on the original teaching of fiqh and its derivatives, before it
developed into a term denoting ‘jurisprudence’, see I. Goldziher and J. Schacht,
“Fiḳh”, EI2, Vol. 2, 889.
22 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Wābil al-ṣayyib min al-kalim al-ṭayyib (Beirut: Dār
al-Jīl, 2001), 58–9. Note that the expression ‘he prepared it for sowing’, whether
knowingly or not, echoes the New Testament ‘Parable of the Sower’; for a com-
parative discussion of this parable in the context of mystical exegetical practices, see
above, the section “The Practice of Listening (istimāʿ).”
23 Ibid. To Ibn Qayyim’s partiality towards Ibn ʿAbbās vis-à-vis Abū Hurayra, cf. the
distinction that Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996) makes between the sagacity of
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and the lack of intelligence of one of the Companions who, in Baṣra,
transmitted traditions he had heard from the Prophet himself with no understanding of
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   319
their meaning – see Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb fī muʿāmalat al-maḥbūb, ed.
ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kayyālī, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1426/2005),
251–78 (Dhikr waṣf al-ʿilm wa-ṭarīqat al-salaf); cf. also the distinction that Abū
Najīb al-Suhrawardī (d. 563/1168) makes between Ḥadīth transmitters and those who
use Ḥadīth for drawing laws out of them:
The predominance of jurists over men of Ḥadīth, from whom the former had
received their knowledge, is their being endowed with understanding, with the
ability to extrapolate laws from the Ḥadīth and with profound and meticulous study
of the religious laws and ordinances … The latter are, therefore, the most distin-
guished religious judges.
See Abū Najīb al-Suhrawardī, Ādāb al-murīdīn, ed. Menahem Milson (Jerusalem:
The Magnes Press, 1977), 14, Section 35.
24 According to the verse under discussion (Q. 4:83); for the issue of the identity of
these ‘men of authority’, see Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, Vol. 10, 159ff.
25 Note that ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), a Ẓāhirī scholar, seems to deny any
positive implication of istinbāṭ; in interpreting Q. 4:83, he writes: “If they were
sincere, [they would have realised that] this verse contains the strongest proof for
rejecting istinbāṭ” – see Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl al-aḥkām, Vol. 6, 21; on Ibn
Ḥazm’s strict position, see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, Vol. 3, 1048; cf. also Rāzī,
Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, al-Masʾala al-thālitha, Vol. 10, 159: among other exegetical
options, Rāzī mentions that yastanbiṭūnahu in Q. 4:83 possibly refers to the
munāfiqūn (the hypocrites), thus implying a negative connotation of istinbāṭ.
26 See the appraisal of the seventh/thirteenth-century Ibn Taymiyya, Uṣūl al-tafsīr, ed.
ʿAlwān Firyāl (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Lubnānī, 1992), 42: ‘As to tafsīr, the people of
Mecca are the most proficient in it, because they are the companions of Ibn ʿAbbās’.
27 See Ibn Taymiyya, Uṣūl al-tafsīr, 60–9.
28 Ibn Taymiyya, Uṣūl al-tafsīr, 69; see also Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, a ‘conservative’ Sufi,
in Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 1, Chapter 31, 284f. (‘Concerning the division of disciplines:
the best and most ancient, the newest and reviled’):
Exegesis by means of taʾwīl, if it does not deviate from the general consensus
(ijmāʿ), can be considered [valid] knowledge; exegesis by means of istinbāṭ, if it is
included in the Qur’an, [namely,] testified by the totality of the Qurʾān and uncon-
tradicted by the sacred text, is [valid] knowledge.
Later on, Makkī cites an uncouth comment by al-Shaʿbī: “Whatever they report to
you based on [prophetic] traditions and accounts – accept; but whatever they report to
you based on their own opinion, spit on it – and once he even said, piss on it.” On the
assertion that all branches of knowledge are (potentially) included in the Qurʾān and
can be drawn out from it by istinbāṭ, see Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Iklīl fī istinbāṭ
al-tanzīl, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ghumārī (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī,
n.d.), 7–8.
29 On this issue, see Rāzī’s explanation of the term ūlī al-amr (Q. 4:83) in Mafātīḥ al-
ghayb, Vol. 10, 159; cf. al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 106, line 8.
30 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 105, lines 5–7.
31 Ibid., lines 7–11; note the repeated use of the root w-r-th denoting ‘endowing,
bequeathing’ – it alludes to the Ṣūfīs’ self-perception as the true successors of the
prophets – as predicted in the well-known ḥadīth: ‘The scholars are the successors of
the prophets’ (al-ʿulamāʾ warathatu al-anbiyāʾ) – on mystics as inheritors of the
prophets, see the section In the Wake of Prophecy, in Chapter 10 of this monograph.
32 The term ahl al-ʿilm is used by al-Sarrāj to explain the idiom ūlī al-amr of Q. 4:83 as
referring to those who possess mystical knowledge.
33 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 106, ll. 12–22; cf. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d.
412/1021), Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, ed. Sayyid ʿImrān, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
320   Language and hermeneutics
al-ʿilmiyya, 1421/2001), 157, citing al-Ḥusayn [al-Ḥallāj?]’s explanation: “Understanding
the Qurʾān by means of istinbāṭ is commensurate to the piety of God’s servant, exter-
nal and internal, and to the completeness of his [mystical] knowledge – this is the
most elevated among the stations of faith.”
34 On this issue, see al-Sarrāj’s formulation in Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, “On the variability of the
insights of men of truth” (Bāb kayfiyyat al-ikhtilāf fī mustanbaṭāt ahl al-ḥaqīqa), 107,
ll. 7–10:
Similarly to men of external [knowledge], they, too, have varied insights; however,
differences in the knowledge of the former lead to erroneous judgment, while
differences in internal knowledge does not do so, since [it is based on] graces, good
and noble qualities, [mystical] states, character traits, stations and ranks.
Notably, this idea is reminiscent of the infinite scope of exegetical possibilities
expressed in Medieval Kabblistic texts, see Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kab-
balah and Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 80–110. I
thank Jonathan Garb for referring me to Idel’s book.
35 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 72–92.
36 On al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, see Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt
al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Johannes Pedersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 49–53; Margaret Smith,
An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith b. Asad
al-Muḥāsibī, a.d 781–a.d 857 (London: Sheldon Press, 1935 [1977]); R. Arnaldez,
“al-Muḥāsibī”, EI2, Vol. 7, 446ff.; Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ
al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Universität Bonn, 1961), 466ff.
37 On al-Muḥāsibī’s possible influence on Baḥyā b. Paqūda (Spain, fifth/eleventh
century), see Amos Goldreich, “Possible Arabic Sources of the Distinction between
‘Duties of the Heart’ and ‘Duties of the Limbs’”, Teʿūda 6 (1988): 179–208 (in
Hebrew); on the continuing influence of the doctrine of the internalization of the
service of God in medieval Jewish mysticism, see Sara Sviri, “The Emergence of Pre-
Kabbalistic Spirituality in Spain: The Case of Baḥyā ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi”,
Donaire (1996): 78–84.
38 See al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya li-ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. Margaret
Smith (London: Luzac, 1940), 1, ll. 10–12.
39 Cf. Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya,
1329/1911), 92: “To him who has intellect with which he acquires knowledge of
­religious law”.
40 Mujāhid was an early exegete of the ʿAbd Allāh Ibn ʿAbbās school; on him, see A.
Rippin, “Mudjāhid b. Djabr al-Makkī”, EI2, Vol. 7, 293.
41 On ‘shahīdʼ as ‘shāhid’, see also al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Taḥṣīl naẓāʾir al-Qurʾān, ed.
Ḥusnī Naṣr Zaydān (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-saʿāda, 1389/1969), 129ff.
42 Cf. Tustarī, Tafsīr, 93: “He listened to what we mentioned witnessing his Lord in a
state of presence, not absent from Him.”
43 Cf. Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, Vol. 1, 145 (at the end of Bāb dhikr al-farq
bayna ʿulamāʾ al-dunyā wa ʿulamāʾ al-ākhira), in his explanation of that same verse:
“with his hearing he listens to Him who hears him, and with his heart he witnesses
what he hears from Him who witnesses him.” Note Abū Ṭālib’s emphasis on the reci-
procity and synesthesia of hearing and seeing between God and man.
44 See al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya, 1, ll. 18–20, 2, l. 1; note Arberry’s rendering of
ūlū’l-albāb with “men possessed of minds”.
45 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 79, ll. 15–18.
46 See the canonical ḥadīth collections – for example, al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, ed. Muḥammad
Zuhayr ibn Nāṣir, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dār Ṭawq al-Najāt, 1422/2001), Kitāb al-Imān, 19, n.
50; also al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, Bāb al-bayān ʿan ʿilm al-taṣawwuf, 6, ll. 4–8. For a
different interpretation, according to which al-aḥsan alludes to the Prophet Muḥammad
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   321
and his primordial qualities, see Abū’l-Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed.
M.ʿA. al-Khālidī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1420 h/1999), 19.
47 On the term ḥuḍūr (presence, being present), usually found in association with its
antonym ghayba (absence), see the list of Ṣūfī terms in al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ,
333–74; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 37; ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Jullabī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf
al-maḥjūb, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden: Brill, 1911; London: Luzac & Co.,
1976 [1936]), 248–51.
48 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 80. ‘The faithful spirit’ (al-rūḥ al-amīn) in Q. 26:193
is, as is well known, a reference to the angel Gabriel; on direct listening to verses of
the Qurʾān recited by God Himself during a dialogue between Him and those who
pray in solitude at night, see Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Vol. 1 (Beirut:
Dār al-Fikr, 1414/1994), Ch. 41, 549ff. Ḥāʾ Mīm are among the enigmatic letters
found at the beginning of twenty-nine sūras in the Qurʾān.
49 See al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 81.
50 For reservations concerning erroneous interpretations derived, allegedly, from mys-
tical seeing, see, for example, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, the chapter titled ‘Those who err con-
cerning the seeing of the heart’, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 428–9; note the statement:
One should know that any light that his eyes see in this world is a created light, and
bears no resemblance to God, most high; it is not an attribute of God, but is a
created creation; but the seeing of the heart by means of faithful revelation, through
certitude and trustworthy acceptance, such a seeing is true.
See 269, ll. 12–14.
51 See, for example, ibid., the chapter titled “On those who hit the mark in their istinbāṭ,
their allusions and their Qurʾān understanding vis-à-vis those who erred and missed
the mark”.
52 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 16.
53 Ibid.
54 Most of the citations are found also in Sulamī’s earlier commentary on the Qurʾān, cf.
al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 2, 269–71.
55 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 16.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Concerning the ‘existential receptacle’, see the section “Listening Understanding
Witnessing” in this chapter.
59 On this issue, see, for example, van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 32.
60 See Matthew 13:3–23, Mark 4:3–20, Luke 8:3–15; see also the Gospel of Thomas, 9.
61 Note that in al-Muḥāsibī’s and al-Suhrawardī’s versions, we find the phrase “[the
sower] went out, took a handful [of seeds]” (fa-malaʾa kaffahu); this phrase appears
in the Gospel of Thomas, but does not appear in the synoptic gospels.
62 See al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Riʿāya, 2–3; on al-Muḥāsibī’s possible sources and on the
copious citations from Christian literature in his works, as well as in early Islamic
literature, see van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 27–8; see also
Louis Massignon, La Passion de Husayn b. Mansūr Hallāj: martyr mystique de
l’Islam exécuté à Baghdad le 26 mars 922, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 45; Mas-
signon, The Passion of al-Ḥallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans. Herbert Mason
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 38; see also [n. 64]. It is worth
noting that an allusion to the Parable of the Sower can be gleaned in Q. 2:264: the
word ṣafwān in this verse, denoting a hard and smooth stone (see, e.g. Ibn al-Jawzī,
Zād al-masīr fī ʿilm al-tafsīr, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdī, Vol. 1 [Beirut, Dār
al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1422/2001], 239), appears also in al-Suhrawardī (in al-Muḥāsibī’s
version the word is ṣafā). Interestingly, none of these authors associates the parable
with this Qurʾānic verse.
63 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 18.
322   Language and hermeneutics
64 For a summary of sources and studies, see Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus: Sayings
and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001),
Introduction, 3–45.
65 See, for example, Ibn Qutayba (d. 271/884), Kitāb al-zuhd in ʿUyūn al-akhbār (Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1986), 286–405; see also Gérard Lecomte, Ibn Qutayba:
l’homme, son oeuvre, ses idées (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1965).
66 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī 18.
67 Ibid.
68 On Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Wāsiṭī al-Farghānī, see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt
al-ṣūfiyya, 302–7; also, Laury Silvers, A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wāsiṭī and
the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010).
69 See al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 17; cf. Al-Sulamī,
Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 2, 269: “namely, the reminder is to one group of people, and
not all people”.
70 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 17; the end of the dictum
alludes to a well-known ḥadīth, which usually deals with phenomena such as
eclipses: see A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indices de la tradition Musulmane, Vol.
2 (Leiden: Brill, 1936–1988), 31; cf. Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-
madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, ed. A.J. Arberry (Cairo: Maktabat al-saʿāda, 1352/1993),
91, Ch. 58:
The sign that God reveals Himself to the innermost heart is that the heart cannot
articulate verbally, or contain by understanding, that which takes over it; he who
articulates it or understands it is one to whom a rational indication occurs, not one
who beholds with reverence.
71 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 17.
72 Ibid. For a daring analysis of the distinction between masters of talwīn and masters of
tamkīn, especially from the perspective of the theology of seeing God, see
Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 311:
… The possessors of hearts (arbāb al-qulūb) undergo changing states (talwīnāt)
according to the multiplicity of the [divine] attributes, because the hearts and the
possessors of the hearts do not transcend the realm of the attributes; the possessors
of stability (tamkīn), on the other hand, transcend the unfortunate aspects of the
[mystical] state, rend the veils of the heart, and their spirits witness the radiance of
the light of the divine essence with no mediation; then the talwīn is removed from
them, for there is no change in the divine essence, His essence is beyond events
and changes.
73 More on talwīn and tamkīn, see al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 366 (talwīn); al-Qushayrī,
al-Risāla, 41; Rafīq al-ʿAjam, Mawsūʿat muṣṭalaḥāt al-taṣawwuf al-islāmī (Beirut:
Maktabat Lubnān lil-Manshūrāt, 1999), 199–203.
74 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 17; cf. the definition of
sobriety and intoxication in the glossary of terms of al-Suhrawardī: “Intoxication
belongs to the masters of hearts, and sobriety belongs to those to whom the truths of
the hidden are revealed”, 310.
75 For a discussion on the superiority of sobriety over intoxication on the mystical path,
see al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 184–8.
76 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 17.
77 Ibid., 19.
78 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 19.
79 On Abū’-l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, see al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 260–8; on his
fame as a Qurʾānic exegete, see ibid., 260; on his commentary which is inserted in
Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, see Nwyia, Trois œuvres inédites de mystiques Musulmans,
 The Countless Faces of Understanding   323
25; Richard Gramlich, Abū l-ʿAbbās b. ʿAṭāʾ, Sufi und Koranausleger (Stuttgart:
Steiner Verlag, 1995); G. Böwering, “Ṣūfī Hermeneutics in Medieval Islam”, Revue
des études Islamiques 55–7 (1987–1989): 255–70.
80 See also al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 1, 264; it should be noted that the tawḥīd
of the first aspect refers, undoubtedly, to the confessional tawḥīd, not to a so-called
unio mystica.
81 Cf. the introduction to al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 3:
Each verse in the Qur’an has four meanings: external, internal, legal, and contem-
plative (maṭlaʿ/muṭṭalaʿ); the external, namely its recitation (al-tilāwa; or: its nar-
rative aspect); the internal, namely the understanding of the Qurʾān (al-fahm, its
cognitive–discursive aspect?); the legal, namely, what is forbidden and what is per-
mitted; the contemplative, namely, the watching of the heart over what the verse
conveys [by means of] a God-granted apprehension (fiqhan min Allāh).
Cf. Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, trans. Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler (Louisville, KY:
Fons Vitae, 2011), 2. For scholarly discussions of the four levels of textual under-
standing, see Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung
(Leiden: Brill, 1920), 215; John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods
of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 242ff. Note the
analogy that Wansbrough proposes to the quadrivium of medieval Christian Biblical
exegesis – historia, allegoria, tropologia, anagoge; on this, see also Haggai Ben-
Shammai, “ ‘The Qur’an Has Been Brought Down in Seven Modes of Articulations’
– on Possible Parallels (or Antecedents) to an Old Islamic Tradition,” the Annual
Shlomo Pines Memorial Lecture, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
2001 (Unpublished). I thank Haggai Ben-Shammai for giving me a copy of his
unpublished lecture. In the context of the four exegetical modes in Islam, it would be
interesting to bear in mind also medieval Jewish exegesis, especially what is known
as Pardes. On this, see Moshe Idel’s summary in his Absorbing Perfections, 429–38:
Appendix 1, “Pardes: the fourfold method of interpretation”.
82 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 19–20, and see also the
previous note; according to Ghazālī, there are those who ascribe this tradition to ʿAlī;
note, that in his polemic with the Bāṭiniyya on the one hand, and with the Ḥashwiyya
on the other, Ghazālī argues that an esoteric understanding of a verse does not cancel
out its literal meaning, and vice versa; see Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-anwār,
ed. Abū ‘l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī (Cairo: al-Hayʼah al-ʻāmmah lil-Kitāb, 1383/1964), 73.
83 See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, Vol. 8, 239 (maṭlaʿ bi-wazn maṣʿad), but the overall
discussion of the term in Lisān al-ʿarab favours muṭṭalaʿ; cf. Edward W. Lane, An
Arabic–English Lexicon, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1984), 1870 s.v.
Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, reads maṭlaʿ as does Sheikh ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Zurbā,
the Imām of the al-Aqṣā mosque, as I heard in a lecture he gave on the Mount of Olives
in June 2004. The reading muṭṭalaʿ is substantiated by a discussion of the four exegeti-
cal modes in a work by Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī, a contemporary Ṣūfī Sheikh of Abū Najīb
al-Suhrawardī (d. 574/1178): In Kitāb al-Burhān al-muʾayyad, ed. ʿAbd al-Ghanī
al-Nakahmī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Nafīs, 1408/1988), in the chapter titled “The
boundaries of understanding the Qur’an”, 178, he explains the fourth mode thus:
The muṭṭalaʿ is the place from which the masters of revelation contemplate the
truths of the words directed at them by angelic inspiration and the understanding of
the spirit … no one can contemplate the truth [of the Qurʾān] without revelation
and vision.
Later, on page 179, he adds: “The fourth stage [of Qurʾānic exegesis] is contemplat-
ing it (al-iṭṭilāʿ ʿalayhi) by the clear light that is found only among the God-fearing”;
cf. also Goldziher, Richtungen, 215.
324   Language and hermeneutics
84 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 20.
85 Ibid., 19; on one word that is also many words and vice versa, cf. al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-uṣūl, Vol. 1, 24, and Chapter 12 in this monograph.
86 Cf. al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 4: “He finds the guidance and the vision of his heart according
to the degree of light that God has allotted to him.”
87 Note the use that al-Suhrawardī makes here of the controversial concept of taʾwīl;
for him taʾwīl does not signify the symbolic-allegoristic exegesis of the Bāṭinīs, but
rather an intuitive-contemplative understanding of the words of God; as far as
I could ascertain, he does not use the term istinbāṭ at all, a term we would have
expected from al-Sarrāj in a similar context; see the “Mustanbaṭāt” section in this
chapter.
88 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 20; cf. the Ismāʿīlī scholar
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/934–935), in Kitāb al-Zīna, according to Poonawala,
“Taʾwīl”, EI2, 391.
89 Al-Suhrawardī, ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, ed. M.ʿA. al-Khālidī, 20.
90 Ibid., 20–1. It is noteworthy, that in Kabbalistic literature, too, one finds the notion of
the mystical experience as a source for a profound understanding of the sacred text;
see, for example, Moshe Idel on “The pneumatic interpreter and union with the
Torah”, in Kabbalah, New Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1988), 234ff.
91 For more on the idea that: “negative mysticism (negation of the image and word) and
positive mysticism (that sees visions and translates them into words) are not always
two different paths embraced by two distinct religious types, [but] rather, are some-
times two successive stages”, see Haviva Pedaya, Vision and Speech: Models of
Divine Revelation in Jewish Mysticism (Los Angeles, CA: Cherub Press, 2002), 23
(in Hebrew). I thank Jonathan Garb for directing me to this important work on the
nature of the revelatory experience in Jewish mysticism.
92 Conceivably, Ṣūfī authors wished to distinguish their mystical understanding of the
inner, bāṭin, aspects inhered within the sacred texts, from the exegesis of the Twelver
and Ismaili Shīʿīs, since these, too, address the inner, hidden aspects of the canonical
texts.
93 Cf. the saying by Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz, cited [n. 9].
94 A reference to, but not a systematic discussion of, istinbāṭ can be found in Goldziher,
Richtungen, 198; although Louis Massignon actually refers to istinbāṭ in his Essai sur
les origines du lexique technique de la mystique Musulmane (Paris: Librairie Orien-
taliste Paul Geuthner, 1968) (trans. Benjamin Clark as Essay on the Origins of the
Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1997]), in Chapter 2, which is the analytical introduction to his book (see p. 46),
he does not devote a discussion to it. In Massignon, La Passion de Husayn b. Mansūr
Hallāj, too, there are a few references to istinbāṭ (see the Index), but there is no system-
atic discussion of it; see, on the other hand, a small but important paragraph in Fritz
Meier, “An Important Manuscript Find for Sufism”, in Essays on Islamic Piety and
Mysticism, trans. John O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 184.
95 R.A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (London: G. Bell, 1914), 23–4. Herbert Mason,
the translator of Massignon’s works into English, questions Nicholson’s definition,
and contrasts it with istinbāṭ as practised by Massignon himself [!] in his study of
Ṣūfī terminology; see translator’s Introduction to Essay on the Origins of the Techni-
cal Language of Islamic Mysticism, xxiii; see also van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des
Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī, 212–13, in the context of al-Muḥāsibī, and cf. Al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb
al-Riʿāya, 209.
96 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ fīl-taṣawwuf of Abū Naṣr ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlī
al-Sarrāj al-Ṭūsī, ed. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (Leiden: Brill, 1914).
97 Al-Sulamī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, Vol. 1, 157; on Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, see [n. 79].
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Index
Page numbers in italics denote figures.
ʿAbd Allāh, Abū Muḥammad see Ibn Munāzil
ʿAbd Allāh Ṭāhir cemetery 108, 110
ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥajjām 88
abdāl see awliyāʾ
Abdel-Kader, Ali Hassan 4
Abraham 48, 64, 68, 202–3, 218, 229,
248, 276
abstention (also zuhd, renunciation) 13, 37,
43, 45–6, 50–3, 150, 174, 176–7, 179;
external 50; light of 46, 174–5; physical
50; relinquishing 51; stages of 174, 178
Abū Bakr (al-ṣiddīq, the first Calph) 59,
157, 199, 202, 222, 248, 284
Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī see al-Wāsiṭī, Abū Bakr
Abū al-Dardāʾ 43, 221
Abū Dharr 62–3, 275
Abū Hurayra 70, 301
Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī 218–19; see also
Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ
Abū Saʿīd see al-Kharrāz, Abū Saʿīd
Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī 104, 146–7
Abū Yazīd see Bisṭāmī, Abū Yazīd
Abyssinia 64, 66
accusations 68, 80, 125, 198; deflecting
from itself onto others 77;
nonconformist 82; in the Scriptures 68
acts 69, 174, 177, 181, 221–3, 227, 242–3,
245, 277, 279, 281–2, 285, 301, 303,
307; altruistic 70, 88; ascetical 50;
contemplative 281; creative 14, 274;
exegetical 307; religious 69, 113;
ritualistic 173, 242–3, 281; synergetic
227; wilful 50, 53; see also religious acts
aʿdāʾ (enemies, adversaries) see ʿaduww
Ādāb al-ʿibādāt (Rules of Conduct for
Acts of Worship;) 44, 173, 180, 240,
244, 302; see also Shaqīq al-Balkhī
Adam 49, 149, 172, 203–4, 218, 250,
270–1
Adam Kadmon (Kabbalistic image) 206
ʿaduww (the Adversary) 12, 47, 170, 207,
224, 226; see also Iblīs
affiliations 28, 77, 80, 82, 102–3, 105–6,
110, 112, 203, 252; communal 25;
complex 114; distinctive 105;
genealogical 253; Ibn Munāzil’s
113–14; political 219; religious 220;
social 32
aḥad 273–4; see also divine names
ahl al-bayt (= the close descendants of
Muḥammad) 107–8, 128, 203, 252,
269, 286
aḥwāl muqābila (polar states) see ḥāl,
pl. aḥwāl
al-ākhira (the afterlife) 38, 43
akhlāq (qualities, sg. khuluq) 2–3, 69, 107,
147, 170, 284
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 26, 29, 107–8
allusions (ishārāt) 2, 195, 219, 245, 303;
to ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak 63;
eschatological 241; levels of 219
angels 29–30, 71, 113, 170, 177, 202, 218,
222, 239–40, 244, 246–7, 270–1, 285–7;
at the flank of the Throne 268; and God
246, 270–1; holy 245; ministering 245
anger (ghaḍab) 93, 149–50, 169, 204,
276–7, 279
al-Anṭākī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh 145
apostates 65–6
Arabic language 37, 39, 43, 239, 270
Arabs 146, 203, 251
Arberry, Arthur J. 2, 4, 60, 103–4, 142,
193, 299
āsā see myrtle

ascetical practices 8, 10, 29, 42, 50, 58, 90,
108, 125, 175, 180; combined 44;
extreme 43, 86; extroverted 11, 30, 87
asceticism (also zuhd, renunciation) 10–11,
13, 23–6, 28, 30, 32, 37–40, 42, 44–8,
50–3, 58–60, 62, 78, 80, 87, 171, 174,
179; early Islamic 41; mild asceticism
39, 43; extreme 63, 68, 86; false 27;
genuine 49; Manichaen-type 27; and
monasticism 58, 60, 62, 71; and
mysticism 24, 26, 28, 30–2, 38, 40, 42,
44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 60, 62; pious 27
Aurelius, Marcus 40
autobiographical text 2, 129, 239
ʿAwārif al-maʿārif 46, 51, 298, 307–8, 315
awliyāʾ, awliyāʾ allāh (sg. walī) 2–3, 7, 9,
12, 14, 39, 53, 126, 128–9, 175, 217–31,
239, 246–9, 253, 270, 283
Babylon 245–7
Badʾ shaʾn (also buduww) shaʾn 13, 125
Baghdād 6, 78–9, 81, 83, 85, 89, 94, 102,
105, 109, 112–15, 192, 195, 304, 306
Baghdādī 82–3, 89, 111–12, 115; brethren
90; circle of al-Junayd 114; circle of
Ṣūfīs 112; informants 82–3; and the
Khurāsānī schools 83, 89; school 47,
83–4, 113; Ṣūfīs 6, 51, 112, 196;
teachers 83, 102, 106, 113
Baḥīrā the hermit 66, 68
Balkh 15, 44, 78–9, 94, 123, 125–6, 129–31
al-Balkhī, Shaqīq see Shaqīq al-Balkhī
Banū Isrāʾīl (Jews and Christians) 157,
202–3, 205, 251
baptism 243
baqāʾ (state of) 141, 143, 181, 201, 310
base inclination (hawā) 49, 125, 170,
172–3, 179, 181
al-Baṣrī, al-Ḥasan 28, 81, 204, 311
al-Bayhaqī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b.
Zayd 29, 110
beauty (jamāl) 128, 151, 173, 182, 201,
203, 205, 226; attributes of 153, 226;
and God 153, 205; and mercy 156, 205
Beck, Edmund 61
beggar, beggars, begging 10, 27, 58,
111–12, 207
behaviour 11, 13, 27, 50, 71, 89, 115, 174,
178–9, 249; extroverted ascetical 27–8, 87;
and God 171, 179; at Ṣūfī gatherings 13
Being, states of being (wujūd) 10, 12,
45–6, 78, 112, 139, 141, 146, 172, 182,
195, 199, 219, 227, 229, 248–50, 270–1,
Index   351
275, 278, 283, 302, 305, 316; at the
onset of creation and birth 251; of the
pre-created souls 195; state of 45, 283;
versus ‘personality’ or ‘ego’ 78
beliefs 64–5, 67, 217–18, 223, 252, 276;
and God 67, 217; mechanical 148; true
65, 67
believers 39, 42–3, 46, 62, 64–7, 128, 142,
144–5, 147, 173, 223–5, 275, 279, 282,
305; community of 43; persecuted 65;
pious 43; sincere 65–6, 143–4; sinful
208; true 64–8
benevolence 139, 145, 147, 203, 205, 224
binarity (also polarity) 8–9, 141, 201–3,
205–6, 253, 276; al-Tirmidhī’s 202;
existential 205; see also polarity
binary scheme 198, 201, 204, 206
Bisṭāmī, Abū Yazīd 6, 51–3, 88, 277
blame (malāma) 63, 66, 77, 81–2, 86,
90–1, 106, 111, 237; and humiliation
90; paths of 77, 80–1, 84, 91, 106, 109,
114; people of 15, 77, 80, 169–70
blemishes 52, 88, 92–3, 109, 177
blessings 106, 109, 218, 280–4
blood vessels 49, 172–3
bloodstream 49–50, 172
blowing (nafth) 279–80
bodily organs 50, 172–3, 227
Bosworth, Edmund 86
Böwering, Gerhard 4, 125–6
breath (nafas) 49, 172–3, 279–80
breathing 229, 280
Breaths of Beauty and Revelations of
Majesty 226
bright light (Kitāb al-Ḍiyā’) 5
Brown, Peter 252
Bulliet, Richard 79, 81, 83, 107
calamities 247, 268, 276, 284, 286
caves (ghīrān) 65–6
celibacy (tabattul) 42, 61, 64
cells (ṣawāmiʿ, sg. ṣawmaʿa) 59, 64,
66–7, 70
cemetery of al-Ḥīra 110
cemetery of Nīshāpūr 108, 110
cemetery of the Amīr ʿAbd Allāh b.
Ṭāhir 107
cemetery of the Sayyids 108
centres 15, 79, 82, 85, 89–90, 93, 125,
243; contemporary 92; early Islamic
mystical 102; third/ninth-century
malāmatī 15
ceremonies 243–4, 246
352   Index
children 106, 108, 149, 154, 204, 231,
237, 251
Chodkiewicz, Michel 129
Christianity 62, 64–5, 68, 252; see also
monasticism
circles 78, 81, 84, 86, 94, 147, 149, 220,
311, 313; al-Junayd’s 311; extreme
ascetic 87; extroverted spiritual 84;
religious 143
‘cleansing of the interiority’ 12–13
clothing 3, 42, 48–50, 62, 69, 88, 240,
242, 271–2
code names 88, 242
coexistence, and integration of polar
opposites within the wholeness and
oneness of God 139–40
Coincidentia Oppositorum (concept
articulated by Nicolaus of Cusa) 139,
141, 153, 155
commentary 2, 29, 42, 44, 61–2, 64–5,
219–20, 223, 245–6, 276, 311;
inter-Qurʾānic 61; traditional 15
commentators 60, 194, 204; earliest
Qurʾān 149, 203; Muslim 149; Ṣūfī 60;
Sunnī 61
community 43, 61, 63, 201–2, 207, 225,
238; of believers 43; intimate 25;
leaders 29, 252; Muslim 62–3, 249;
religious 30, 238; Shīʿī 29, 107
compassion 151, 157, 182, 198, 202, 208,
231, 282; and detachment 177; and love
157; and mercy 144, 202; and the
monastic life 60
compilations, compilatory literature 1, 3,
5–7, 9, 10, 13–16, 82–4, 102, 106, 114,
178, 223, 305, 307–8; Adab 38; Ḥadīth
207; medieval Midrashic 242
conceit (ʿujb) 85–6, 90, 148
concepts 6–8, 11, 14, 24, 129, 139–41,
145, 156, 193–4, 197–9, 206, 238,
273–4; abstract 49, 192–3, 198;
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s 1, 93, 198, 205,
248, 251; fundamental semantic 273;
moral religious 197
consciousness 110, 247, 310, 313–14;
innermost 91–2; mystic’s 313
contemplation 11, 25, 91, 144, 151, 205,
272, 313–14, 316; and consciousness
92; linguistic 220; mystical 145, 272,
277, 307
contemporaries 1–2, 6, 10, 48, 107, 198;
al-Kindī’s 194; al-Muḥāsibī’s 145;
among the mystics of Khurāsān 92;
Christian sects 65
correspondence 15, 82, 94, 123, 130–1,
220, 238; mutual 132; schemes of 131;
surviving 131
cosmological 49, 140, 192, 203–4; views
203–4
cosmological origins 49
cosmology 49
creation 7, 49, 140, 149, 156, 179, 203–4,
221, 227, 229, 267, 270–1, 274, 310,
313–14; act of 267, 272; new 311;
second 310
creator 7, 94, 229, 285
critique 23, 28, 58, 63, 68; al-Tirmidhī’s
15; anti-orientalist 23; passionate 300;
vigorous 27
Crone, Patricia 27–8
cultural patterns 8, 237–8
cultures 37, 238; and mystics 24; religious
3, 8, 24
dangers 24, 141, 180; of dualistic influence
(Zoroastrian or Manichean) 141; of
fanatic resistance to European rule 24;
of self-identification 180
darkness (ẓulma) 139, 173–4, 279, 286
David 29, 48
de Jong, Frederick 123
death 40, 66, 102, 115, 171, 176, 217, 311;
al-Khargūshī’s 104; imminence of 40;
of Jesus 28; premature 5
Deladrière, Roger 4
delusions 50–1, 78, 148
denominations 26–7
descendants 29, 89, 107–8, 202–3, 205;
direct 128; distinguished 107; of Hagar
251; Hebrew 203; of Isḥāq 203; of
Ismāʿīl 203; of Sarah 251
deserts 40, 42, 65, 67, 286
desire 45, 48–50, 59, 91, 93, 155, 169,
172–4, 267, 275, 283; and God 50, 93;
lofty 50; and pleasure 49, 172; of the
saints 175
devil 269; see also ʿaduww; Iblīs
devotion 24, 108, 145, 179, 303; sincere
religious 62; total 157
devotional 31, 41, 93, 105, 180, 315;
adherence 303; curriculum 304; life 39,
115; path 170; practices 41; programme
303
dhikr (remembrance) 13–14, 84–5, 92,
126, 176, 181; see also invocations

al-Dībāja, al-Ḥasan 108
didactic sayings 145
didactic texts 251–2
disciples 15, 27–8, 39, 44, 60, 80, 85–6,
88–90, 102–3, 105, 107, 109–15, 147,
151, 305; al-Junayd’s 195; al-Kindī’s
194; alleged 30; ambitious 60;
distinguished 80, 301; and teachers 15,
103, 105, 107, 109, 111, 113, 115
disciplines 7, 24, 169–71, 174, 176, 178,
182, 200; autonomous 169; designed
173; human 179; transformative 174
discourse 24–5, 109, 126, 169, 182, 201,
227, 245, 310–12; al-Suhrawardī’s 307;
distinctive 267; divine 200; early 172;
fertile 80; free-flowing oral 239;
inspired 200; intimate 310; polemical
127; secret 178
discrimination (power of) 155
divine 8–9, 12, 156–7, 180, 182, 195, 198,
201, 227, 229, 276–7, 279, 312, 314,
316; affiliation 222; attributes 144, 151;
authority 217; command 197; gifts 150,
270; governance 282; grace 92, 171,
174, 183, 252, 314; inspiration 86, 200,
253, 303, 309–10; mercy 50, 149, 203,
208; names 14, 192–4, 196, 207, 228,
273; oneness 141, 205; order 245, 270;
polarity of attributes 141, 206;
revelation 93, 314, 316; speech 306,
312–13; wisdom 14, 128, 156, 239;
word 14, 309–10, 313
divine names 6–7, 10, 192–208, 228, 268,
270–5, 276, 279–84, 286–730; see also
aḥad; al-Ḥaqq; wāḥid
doctrine 3, 26, 105, 108, 141, 147–8, 217,
247; al-Tirmidhī’s 2; ethical 304; Shīʿī
131, 252; Sūfī 315; theological 26, 252
dreams 2–3, 9, 40, 125, 220–1, 237–43,
245, 247–8, 251–3
Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmiḏ
(Thalāthat muṣannafāt lil-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī) 129
Drower, Lady E.S. 244
duality 78, 141, 154; fear and hope 154;
ladder of polar states 157; opposites 141;
ladder of ascent 45, 150, 152–3, 155
al-dunyā (this life, the terrestrial life)
37–8, 43–5, 47, 49, 53, 69, 178, 225,
248, 256
duties and rights of man towards his fellow
man (ḥuqūq al-nās) 197–8
dynameis 140, 198
Index   353
Early Islam 4, 8, 10–12, 26, 29–31, 40–2,
44, 58, 144, 206, 220, 237–8, 244, 246,
251–3; and Christian monasticism 60;
history 252; lore 202; mysticism 1, 4,
10, 12, 15, 24, 31, 69, 78, 82, 103, 112;
nourishing of 241; sources 40, 248
An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of
the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith B. Asad
al-Muḥāsibī 4
early mystical 4, 29, 31, 44, 47, 58, 71, 77,
108; authors 47; movements 77;
pedagogy 44; writings 58, 71
early mystics 3–5, 10, 30, 49, 58, 102, 123,
173, 267–8; and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī
44; and al-Muḥāsibī 44; asceticism
10–11; of Khurāsān 31; and pietists 39;
and Shaqīq al-Balkhī 44
early Ṣūfī vocabulary 6, 106, 170, 228, 306
earth 7, 12, 50, 143, 172, 219, 221–2, 225,
240, 245, 248, 250, 268, 285–6, 299
eating 13, 42–3, 62, 66, 174, 240; avoiding
45; excessive 45; meat 71
Ebstein, Michael 129
ecstatic sayings (shaṭaḥāt) 6, 105, 195–6
education 38, 103, 200, 228, 249; and God
200; programmes 38; religious 103
ego 50, 78, 90, 92, 147, 170; based
conditionings 150; based properties 151;
and consciousness 78, 90; documents
238; see also nafs
emotions 144, 148, 151, 153; see also
polar emotions
empowerment 78
emptiness (Kitāb al-Farāgh) 5
Encyclopaedia of Islam 170, 300
endowment (mawhiba) 203, 205
energies 49, 90, 172, 281, 283; spiritual
172, 278; transformative 180
entities 10, 49, 169, 198, 281; earth-bound
45, 169; enlightened 45
epistles 4, 7, 60, 77, 80, 92, 151, 194,
196, 223, 251; al-Junayd’s 195;
al-Qushayrī’s 51
epithets, traditional 222
Ernst, Carl 24
Esther (Hebrew name Hadassah) 246
events 2, 6, 65, 150, 155, 201, 237, 245;
historical 2; and the religion of Jesus 63;
spiritual 152; transformative 150; which
Ṣūfīs name aḥwāl 150, 206
evil 38, 49–50, 90, 139, 141–2, 204, 241,
269, 275–6, 284–5; inclinations 90; that
which incites to 171
354   Index
exegesis 14, 108, 246, 298, 301–2, 306–7,
315; inspirational 303; Qurʾānic 298–9,
301–2; Ṣūfī 298, 302, 304, 315;
Talmudic 246; traditional 194
existence 8, 10, 62–3, 139–40, 182, 194–6,
199, 201, 217–19, 229–30, 267, 274–5,
283, 310, 314; awliyāʾ‘s 221; binary
scheme of 198, 201; hedonistic 32;
human 195; perpetual 218; spiritual 175;
timeless 309; unity of 139; worldly 46
existential receptacle (wiʿāʾ wujūdī)
310–13
experience 24–5, 51–2, 84, 86, 145, 153–5,
180, 310–11, 313; auditory 14;
dreamer’s 247; in-depth 15; intensified
24; living 268; mystical 13, 180, 304,
309–10, 314; personal 25, 314; polar
157; revelatory 314; shaykh’s 153;
sustained 174, 178
exploration 14, 16, 59, 238, 251, 315;
contemplative 149; detailed 313; and
mystical psychology 9
eyes 10, 70, 90–1, 94, 151, 175, 217, 229,
250, 275, 278–9, 281–2, 286, 309
faith (īmān) 8, 14, 81, 93, 146, 223, 306,
316; consolidating 93; men of 276; new
41; sincere 142; true 65
faithfulness 11, 223, 285–6
fanāʾ, al-fanāʾ wa’l-baqāʾ 141, 143, 151,
156, 181, 201, 310
faraḥ 49, 172–3
fard (divine name) 273
al-Farrāʾ, Muḥammad 111
fasting 41–2, 45, 49, 87, 174–5, 177, 222;
continuous 42; of Dāwūd (ṣawm/ṣiyām
Dāwūd) 42; pattern 42; prolonged 48;
total 174
fatā (youth) 87, 89; see also futuwwa
fathers 2, 103, 109, 114, 142, 203, 248,
269, 287; Abraham 269; al-Sulamī’s
115; child’s 70
fear (khawf) 43, 45–6, 48, 52, 62, 92–3,
141–3, 145–8, 150–2, 154–7, 171, 174,
176–80, 208, 218–19; believer’s 145; of
God 45, 67, 93, 176, 282; and hope 44,
139, 141–53, 155, 157; self-willed 176;
sincere 145; stages of 176–7
fityān 87–8, 108; see fatā; futuwwa
flesh 92, 173, 247–8, 279
food 42–3, 50, 62, 66, 174–5
forbearance 276–7
force 172, 311; creative 275;
earth-bound 172
forgiveness 205, 207–8, 224, 276–7,
282, 286
Formative Period 5–7, 16, 26, 31–2, 105,
171, 174, 238, 247, 253
formula 62, 180, 229–30, 243, 268–9,
274–5, 282, 284–7; linguistic 14, 272,
283; prophylactic 269, 280; sacred
281, 283
forty days 45, 174–7
forty righteous men 3, 64–6, 170, 218–19,
221–5
free and noble (al-aḥrār al-kirām) 249–50
‘Friends of God’ (awliyāʾ Allāh) 7, 9,
128–9, 153, 155–6, 181–2, 198–200,
218, 220, 222–3, 227, 229, 248–9,
251–2, 269–71; see also awliyāʾ
friendship (wilāya) 2, 199–201, 217, 219,
223, 225, 227, 229, 231, 271; with God
9, 14, 200; and knowledge 221, 229; and
love 126; see also awliyāʾ
Frye, Richard 80
fuʾād 275, 278–9, 281
al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ 38
functions 90, 192, 200, 239, 241, 245–6,
278–9, 283, 307, 314; cosmic 7; external
278; human 267; inner 278; mental 278;
special 200, 306
al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya see Ibn al-ʿArabī
futuwwa 80, 87–9, 108; see also fatā;
īthār; youth
garments 26, 28, 62, 88; luxurious 31, 58;
patched 84; white 29–30; see also
clothing
generosity (concept) 46, 51, 59, 87, 107,
144, 147, 177, 224, 282, 285
al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid 2, 146, 148, 150,
169–70
ghirra (self delusion) 68–9
gifts see mawhiba
glowing light (ḍiyāʾ) 174, 273
Gnostic schools 252
Gnostic sources 40
Gnostic traditions 8, 204
goals 40–1, 45; of religious life 40;
supreme 154, 306; to transcend the
dynamic polarity ad infinitum 151; of
true religions 41
God 12–15, 44–53, 60–4, 66–7, 69–70,
91–3, 125–9, 139–56, 174–82, 192–208,
217–31, 239–43, 245–53, 267–87,
302–16; beautiful names of 6; befriends
one of His servants 181; and inspired
love 177; and the knowledge that is with

217; oneness of 139–40, 147, 157, 285;
the science of 93; and the teaching
Adam 271; vision of 141, 308;
worshipping of 147, 222, 306
Goldziher, Ignaz 30, 171
goodness 108, 111, 140, 147, 149, 241,
282, 284–5
gospels 59–60, 64, 66–7
governance (tadbīr) 149, 201, 204, 220,
270, 275–6
governors 29, 87, 125
grace (faḍl) 61, 93, 144, 147, 153, 205,
226, 230, 250, 282; and awliyāʾ 228;
divine 92, 171, 174, 183, 252, 314; of
God 303; theoretical 23
grandchildren 106, 108
grandfathers 80, 83–4, 103, 114, 269
graves 39–40, 92
groups 25–9, 31, 38, 40, 66–7, 79, 81–2,
87, 147, 150–1, 203, 205, 221, 228, 237;
contemporary sectarian 220; ethnic 202,
251, 299; local 102; organized 27;
religious 29, 202, 241; rival 79
guidance 25, 197, 200, 250; by al-ḥaqq
200; divine 250; of an expert master 25;
and God’s precepts legal and moral 197
hadas (also āsā) 246; see also myrtle
Hadassah (Esther) 246
al-Ḥadathī, Faḍl 27
al-Ḥaddād, Abū Ḥafṣ 84–6, 88–90, 114
ḥadīth 2, 44, 61–2, 69–70, 104, 109–10,
179, 198, 201–2, 207–8, 300, 306;
collections 38, 149; compilations 207;
literature 38, 149; quoted 40
ḥadīth al-nawāfil 226–7
Ḥadīth Folk (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth) 129–31
ḥadīth qudsī (divine tradition) 146, 149,
182, 203, 226, 275
Ḥadīth Transmitters 204, 300–1
Hagar (the slave woman vs. Sarah the free
woman) 251
ḥajj 16, 102, 113, 206
al-Ḥajjām, ʿAbd Allāh 88
al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī al-Bayyiʿ, Abū
ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh
80–1, 86–7, 92, 109, 123
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī 1–3, 5–7, 9–11, 13–15,
49–50, 58–60, 68–71, 81–3, 91–4,
125–32, 197–9, 201–2, 205, 220–9, 240,
248–51, 269–81, 273, 277–8; study of 3,
10, 15, 104; teachings 199, 249; works
by 2, 14, 16, 197, 220, 253
Index   355
al-Ḥakīmiyya 84; see also al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī
ḥāl, pl. aḥwāl (mystical state/s) 9, 31, 38,
47, 52–3, 77, 130, 141, 150–1, 219,
226, 304
al-Ḥallāj, al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr 2–3, 6,
104, 156, 192, 194–6, 308
Ḥanafites 79
Ḥananiah 245
al-Ḥaqq 6–7, 10, 47, 154, 156, 192–203,
205–8, 228; diffusion of as the divine
name par excellence 196; distinctive and
extensive view of al-Tirmidhī’ 7, 195;
divine name of 6; functions as a
predicate of Allāh 193; involvement
with the mystical journey of the walī
200; responsibilities 201; use of 7;
vision of 198
al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi 7
Hartmann, Richard 80, 87, 156
hawā (base inclination) 49, 125, 170,
172–3, 179, 181
hearts 12–13, 46, 48–50, 60, 91–3, 143–6,
152–4, 174–80, 217–18, 222, 240–1,
277–82, 284, 303–9, 312–13; actions of
the 4, 38; ailing 148; eyes of the 277;
innermost 91, 94, 130, 314, 316; spies
of the 146; the worship of the 199, 286,
305; see also qalb, fuʾād, sirr
ḥajj (pilgrimage) 16, 69, 102, 107, 109–10,
113, 125, 206, 284
heavens 7, 202, 252, 268, 282, 285–6
Hebrew language 11, 24, 197, 203, 246, 267
Heer, Nicholas 129
hell 49, 144, 147, 172–3, 287
hell-fire 43, 45, 173
Hellenistic traditions 32, 206
Hellenistic mysteries 141
Hellenistic philosophies 8
Herat 78–9
heretics 65, 67
hermeneutics 268, 270, 272, 274, 276,
278, 280, 282, 284, 286, 302, 304, 306,
308, 310; mystical 8, 14; scriptural 14;
Ṣūfī 14
hermits 66–8, 70–1; see also monasticism
ḥikma 2, 127–8, 156, 183, 203, 205
Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ 110, 218; see also Abū
Nuʿaym
Hindu mysticism 24
al-Ḥīra (a quarter in Nīshāpūr) 110, 115
al-Ḥīrī, Abū ʿUthmān 15, 80, 82–5, 89,
92–4, 103, 115, 130, 147
356   Index
history, historical processes 6, 8, 23, 31–2,
39, 77–8, 80–1, 83–4, 102, 104–5, 112,
115, 123, 132, 237, 239, 243
holy 26, 110, 170, 176, 237, 239, 241, 243,
247–9, 251–3; hymns 244; visions
245–6; war 61, 63, 170; see also awliyāʾ
‘holy men’ 218, 238–9, 246–7, 253, 283;
see also awliyāʾ
hope (rajāʾ) 9–10, 12, 38, 43–4, 46, 52,
102, 139, 141–57, 171, 206, 240, 285;
and fear 44, 139, 141–53, 155, 157;
sincere 145; true 146
al-Hujwīrī 9, 85, 87, 92, 175
human beings 7, 49, 177, 192, 195, 201,
217, 222, 241, 246, 250–1
human bodies 49
human hierarchy 127; spiritual 217
human nature 9, 12–13, 53, 77, 146, 170,
175, 248–9
humbleness 59
humiliation 87, 90, 111
husbands 3, 43, 62, 239, 247
hymns 243–4, 246
hypocrisy 68, 86, 91
hypocrites 142
ʿibādāt see religious acts
Iblīs 47, 49, 170, 207
Ibn ʿAbbās 66, 301–2
Ibn Abī al-Dunyā 248
Ibn al-ʿArabī 7, 10, 51, 80, 156, 220,
226–7, 229–30
Ibn al-Faḍl, Muḥammad al-Balkhī 15, 82,
85, 92, 94, 123, 125, 129
Ibn al-Mubārak 111–12, 114
Ibn al-Munāzil 102, 106, 109–15
Ibn al-Qāsim, Muḥammad 26
Ibn ʿAlī, Muḥammad see al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī
Ibn ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī, Muḥammad 123, 126
Ibn al-ʿArabī 51, 80, 227
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh 183
Ibn Gabirol, Solomon 29, 48, 277
Ibn Karrām, Muḥammad 81, 86–7
Ibn Khaldūn, fourteenth-century historian
11, 31, 300
Ibn Masarra 7
Ibn Masʿūd 62–4, 269, 302, 311
Ibn Maẓʿūn, ʿUthmān 62
Ibn Mubārak 112
Ibn Munabbih, Wahb 222
Ibn Munāzil, ʿAbd Allāh, Abū Muḥammad
109, 112–15
Ibn Nuṣayr 243
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 301–2
Ibn Saʿd 28, 62, 64
Ibn Sīnā 169
Ibn Sulaymān, Muqātil 61–3, 149, 197, 203
Ibrāhīm ibn Adham 32, 188
ideologies 6, 8, 251
idioms 12, 42, 130, 196, 198, 220, 229,
299, 311; recurring Qurʾānic 229;
special 196; and worship 197
idolatry 93, 230, 282
iḍṭirār (constraint, psychological impasse)
227, 250
ijmāʿ (consensus) 300, 303
ikhlāṣ (faithfulness) 11, 86, 223
illness 148, 280, 284
ʿilm see knowledge
images 8–9, 152–3, 171, 237–8, 243–7,
252, 278
īmān see faith
individuals 25–6, 28–31, 40, 103, 105,
146, 238
‘inner light’ 174, 176–7, 277–8
innovations 63, 65–6, 125
interpretation 2, 62, 65, 230, 237, 245,
252, 274, 281, 301–2, 305, 309, 311,
314; of al-Muḥāsibī 305; apologetic 6;
implicit 302; surveying al-Tirmidhī’s 267
intimacy (uns) 45, 52, 145, 151–7, 180–1,
196, 226, 252
invocation 14, 269, 275–7; see also dhikr
irāda (wish, aim) 50, 53, 249, 275
Iran 237, 244
Iranian religions 1, 40
Iraq 111
al-Iṣfahānī, Abū al-Faraj 26
al-Iṣfahānī, Abū Nuʿaym see Abū Nuʿaym
Islam 24–6, 30–2, 37–8, 41, 58–9, 61–2,
68, 77–8, 80, 86–7, 141, 170–1, 206,
248, 252; mystics of 39; nascent 40,
238; traditional 79, 129
Islamic 1–6, 8–16, 23–7, 30–2, 37–41, 77–8,
81–4, 102–5, 139–43, 204–6, 238–41,
246–9, 251–3, 299–300; culture 26;
esotericism 206; jurisprudence 299–300;
literature 238–9; lore 68, 197, 202, 248;
mystical literature 157, 169; mystical
traditions 47; mystics 10, 12, 23; period
247; philosophers 169; religious
literature 142; spirituality 238, 253;
studies 11, 23; traditions 143, 204, 248;
world 5, 15, 123
Islamic mysticism 1–6, 8, 10–11, 16, 23,

30–1, 37, 43, 77–8, 83–4, 86–7, 102–5,
252–3; contemporaneous with
al-Tirmidhī 205; early manifestations of
11, 103; the formative period of 32, 105,
238, 247, 253; identifying with
taṣawwuf 82; Neoplatonic flavour of
205; study of early 4, 24, 103
Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen
Centuries of Controversies and
Polemics 123
Israel 149, 197, 204, 237, 251
Isrāʾīliyyāt 222
Istanbul 129
istimāʿ see listening
istinbāṭ (drawing out explanations) 14,
298–303, 305–6, 314–15
īthār (chivalry and altruism) 78, 88–9;
see also futuwwa
Jacob 48, 202
al-Jāḥiẓ 27–8
Jerusalem 81, 240
Jesus 40, 60–1, 63–8, 70, 229, 251
Jewish 8, 11, 149, 237; mysticism 23–4,
267; traditions 247
Jews (also Banū Isrāʾīl) 64, 157
John the Baptist 26, 142
journeys 2, 40, 89, 103, 150, 153–4,
180–2, 199–200, 227–8, 299; mystical
2, 10, 172, 200; spiritual 125;
transformational 141
Judaeo-Islamic traditions 267
Judaic traditions 32, 204, 206, 248
Judaism 25, 64–5, 68, 206, 242, 252, 267
judgement 25, 81, 104, 141, 149, 197, 204,
221; day of 201; exacting 208; and
mercy 141
al-Junayd, Abū al-Qāsim 1, 3–4, 6, 44,
47–8, 51, 81, 83, 89, 109–10, 114–15,
156, 194–6, 311
Jurayj the hermit 70–1
Jurists (alsoʿulamāʾ) 300, 302–3
al-Jurjānī, Muḥammad 300
justice (ʿadl) 7, 26, 147, 149, 156, 192–3,
197–8, 202, 204–5, 207, 274
Kabbalistic paradigms 205–6
al-Kalābādhī 3, 46, 51, 82, 104–5
karāmāt (extraordinary deeds) 77, 228, 230
Karrāmiyya 79, 81, 86–7
Keeler, Ali and Annabel 4
al-Khargūshī, Abū Saʿd 16, 82, 102–8,
111–15, 298, 302, 315
Index   357
al-Kharrāz, Abū Saʿīd 3–5, 10,
44, 145, 156, 180–1, 196,
223, 306
al-khāṣṣa (also al-khawāṣṣ) 12, 53, 127–8,
225; see also awliyāʾ
khātam al-awliyāʾ (‘Seal of Saints’) 2–3,
221, 225; see also Sīrat al-awliyāʾ
khawf (fear) 43, 45–6, 151,
174, 176
al-Khayyāṭ (tailor) 88
al-Khuldī, Jaʿfar 83
Khurāsān 29, 31, 78–9, 81, 83, 86–7, 89,
92, 94, 102, 105, 108, 126, 128–9,
131–2; schools 83, 89; teachers
83, 88
kindness 46, 144, 147, 153, 178, 182, 202,
205, 226
Kister, M.J. 1, 102
Kitāb al-Ansāb 80
Kitāb al-Farq bayna ‘l-firaq 80
Kitāb al-Furūq (The Book of Semantic
Differences) 199
Kitāb al-Jihād 63
Kitāb al-Lumaʿ 3, 6, 83, 104–5, 111–12,
114, 144, 196, 298, 302, 304–5, 315;
see also al-Sarrāj
Kitāb al-Ṣidq (Book of Truthfulness) 4
Kitāb al-riyāḍa 279
Kitāb al-Zuhd 38
knowledge (ʿilm, maʿrifa) 11–12, 14, 67,
69–70, 92–4, 109–11, 127–8, 217–21,
268–70, 272, 283, 300–3, 305–8,
312–13, 315; common 10, 106; divine 2,
12, 252, 312; enlightened 278; external
127, 272; of God 12, 52, 224, 252;
search of 89, 110; special 77, 220; true
69–70, 272
Kraus, Paul 4, 106
Kubrā, Najm al-Din 153–4
Kun! (Be!, Yehi) 14, 229–30, 267, 274–5
labour 27, 29
The Ladder of Divine Ascent 40
language 13–14, 90, 227–9, 237, 267,
270–2, 282–3, 315; Arabic 37, 39, 43,
239, 270; creative 14; daily spoken 239;
decoding 14; empowering of 283;
occupies a pivotal position in the
divinely created order 270; performative
14; plain 219; and power 227;
power of creative 14; quasi-medical
metaphoric 148; sacred 14, 267;
secrets of 14
358   Index
Late Antiquity 8–9, 26, 29, 40, 141, 143,
147, 194, 237, 241, 243, 247, 252–3,
281; Gnostic religions of 243; Jewish
mystical texts of 281; and Near-Eastern
Antiquity 247; pre-Islamic 246
laws 7, 110, 127–8, 157, 192–3, 197–8,
202, 205, 207, 300–2; canonical 300;
negative 127; particular 128; positivistic
300; preserving 192
leaders (community) 29, 252
letters (ḥurūf) 7, 15, 82, 85, 92–4, 113,
123, 130–1, 268, 270–4, 277, 280–2
The Life, Personality and Writings of
al-Junayd: A Study of a Third/Ninth
Century Mystic 4
light, lights 15, 46–7, 53, 69, 78, 87, 93,
113, 127, 139, 155, 173–9, 186, 200,
202, 205, 219, 224, 228, 244, 268,
272–9, 310, 312, 314
linguistic contemplation 220
listening (istimāʿ) 13–14, 284, 298–9,
304–5, 307–15; attentive 304–7, 309,
311, 313; practice of 304, 315; true
308–9, 311
literature, pietistic 171, 249
liturgy 244
love (maḥabba) 12, 48, 52, 125–6, 130,
141, 145, 147–8, 150–1, 154, 156–7,
176–80, 182, 226, 230–1; and
abstention 46, 177; and fear 46, 147;
and knowledge 154; light of 46, 177;
and mercy 150
‘love of God’ (al-maḥabba li-llāh) 45–6,
53, 69, 145, 174, 177, 180
al-Madīna 41
magic 229, 268–9
maḥabba see love
malāma (blame, self-blame) 15, 77, 80–1,
88, 94, 111
al-Malāmatī, Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār 84
malāmatī teachers 78, 80, 84, 87–8, 90,
109, 112–13
Makkī see Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī
al-Maʾmūn 107–8
Mandaean religion 204, 243–4, 246
manuscripts 80–1, 102, 126, 129, 300
manzila, pl. manāzil (stage, station) 39,
44–6, 51, 152, 172, 178–9, 220
map of Salmān’s search for truth 41
map of Transoxiana 124
maqām, pl. maqāmāt (stage, station) 9, 31,
38–9, 44, 46–7, 52, 88, 141, 147, 150–1,
153, 172, 316
al-Maqdisī (also al-Muqaddasī) 79, 81, 86
maʿrifa see knowledge
Marmorstein, A. 141
martyrs 108, 219, 223
Mary 59–60
Mason, Herbert 3
Massignon, Louis 3, 6, 31, 60–1, 63, 104,
106, 194
mawhiba, mawāhib (divine gifts) 50, 106,
151, 203, 205, 224, 250, 270, 282, 307
medieval Islam 140
medieval Islamic philosophy 169
Meier, F. 156
Melchert, Christopher 30
mercy (raḥma) 60, 67, 141–2, 144, 147–50,
153, 156, 178, 193, 198, 200–5, 207,
226, 228, 284–5; measure of 204;
predominance of 149–50, 204
Michael, the angel 202, 218
mirror (mirʾa) 13, 314
Mishaʾel 245
monastic life 42, 60, 62, 67, 71
monasticism (also rahbāniyya) 4, 8, 29,
32, 40–3, 49, 58–68, 70, 149, 156–7,
206, 237, 249, 308; and asceticism 58,
60, 62; Christian 40, 42, 49, 58, 61, 63,
68, 70; false 28; feigning 27;
Muḥammad’s approval of 61; roving 63;
temporary 68
Moses 149, 175, 204, 218, 222, 228
Mourad, Suleiman A. 28
al-Mubārak, ʿAbd Allāh 63, 102
muḥaddath 201
Muḥammad 15, 62, 65–8, 70, 87, 106, 108,
129; embraces the new faith of Islam
41; and the forty monks who were
sincere believers in both Jesus and 65;
incorruptibility of 226; and the period
intervening between Jesus and 64;
question as to how one attains the
knowledge of the self 94; recognition of
68; young 40, 68
muḥāsaba 44, 48, 50, 125
al-Muḥāsibī, Al-Ḥārith 3–4, 10–11, 44, 48,
59, 69, 144, 304–5, 308
mujāhada 31, 39, 43, 47, 50, 53,
151, 249
mujāhadat al-nafs (also riyāḍat al-nafs,
fighting the self) 12–13, 47, 125, 249
mukhallaṭ 179, 190, 276
al-Muqaddasī see al-Maqdisī
Muqātil b. Sulaymān 42, 61–3, 65–7, 149,
197, 204
muraqqaʿa (patched garment) 84

al-Murtaʿish Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh
114–15
mushāhada 92, 107, 151, 309
Muslims 24, 42, 52, 62, 157, 237;
commentators 149; community 62–3,
249; devout 170, 269; eminent 269;
mystics 1–2, 10, 12, 14, 30, 39, 53, 58,
68, 82, 123, 267, 308; pious 217, 269
Muʿtazila 26–7, 79, 147
muṭṭalaʿ 311–12
myrtle 8, 237–53; evergreen 241–2, 244,
253; fine-smelling 243; fresh 244, 246;
and holy men 237, 239, 241, 243, 245,
247, 249, 251, 253; identifying
Zechariah’s 247; imagery 244;
perfumed 244; symbolism 242, 246;
trees 244–6; young green 240–2
mystical 1, 6, 12–13, 77, 80, 90, 92–3,
171, 195, 198, 272, 278–9, 303–4, 306,
313–15; attainments 115; contemplation
145, 272, 277, 307; culture 5; existence
13, 53; experiences 13, 180, 304,
309–10, 314; Islam 16, 193; knowledge
10, 69, 109, 155, 267, 271–3, 277–9,
281, 283; life 4, 12, 311; linguistics 8,
196, 229, 267, 269–70; perspectives
194; psychology 9–10, 68, 94, 123;
schools 29, 31, 78, 87, 89, 92, 102–3,
108; science 109; teachings 44, 125,
131; texts 24; traditions 28, 80, 83, 238;
understanding 304, 308–9, 311–13
mysticism 10–12, 23–4, 26, 28, 30–2, 38,
40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 58; and
asceticism 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 38, 40, 42,
44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 60, 62; Hindu 24
mystics 1, 3, 8–12, 23–6, 28, 30–1, 69, 77,
81–4, 110, 112, 123, 125, 179, 316;
contemporary 82, 125; earliest 5;
eighth-century 173; intoxicated 192;
ninth-century 1, 156, 180; Nīshāpūrī
102; renowned 80; tenth-century 131, 195
nafas (breath) 49, 172–3, 279–80
nafs (lower-self, ego) 12, 45, 47–51, 53,
78, 86, 88, 90–3, 169–77, 179–83,
199–200, 228, 249, 278, 280
al-nafs al-ammāra bi ‘l-sūʾ 47, 90, 171
al-nafs al-lawwāma 47, 171
al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna 47, 171
names see divine names
al-Nāṣir, al-Ḥasan 108
Nawādir al-uṣūl 59, 67, 69, 201–3, 207,
221–2, 250–1, 274–6, 279
nawāfil see religious acts
Index   359
Naysābūr, Taʾrīkh 80
al-Naysābūrī, al-Ḥākim see al-Ḥākim
al-Naysābūrī
Nebuchadnezzar, King 245
Neoplatonic 7, 194, 206; flavour of Islamic
mysticism 205; text 195; traditions 8
New Testament 308
Nīshāpūr 78–9, 81, 110; early malāmatīs
of 10, 15, 79, 83, 103, 130; tenth-
century 78; town of 78, 108
Nīshāpūrī 106–7, 114–15; centre 85, 89;
chronicles 108; disciples 89; of former
malāmatī groups 115; Malāmatī mystics
108; Malāmatī Shaykh 92; mystics 102;
teachers 84, 87, 93, 109, 112
Nīshāpūrīs 15, 84, 102, 107, 109, 112,
114–15, 130
non-believers 147
non-Muslims 24
nūr, anwār see light
al-Nūrī, Abū al-Ḥasan (or al-Ḥusayn) 126
Nwyia, Paul 5, 44, 61, 63, 104, 106, 178,
298, 314–15
oneness 147, 154, 181, 204, 224, 231, 279,
285, 312; divine 141, 205; of God
139–40, 147, 157, 285; mystical 10;
undifferentiated 276
parable of the sower 308
paradigm 7, 11, 30–1, 44, 171, 205; binary
193; linear 31
Paradise 43, 45–6, 52, 144, 174, 176, 201,
205, 268
Paul 251
peace 66–7, 178, 201, 207, 230, 271, 302, 306
perfection 155, 169, 195
persecutions 65, 68, 123, 125–6
perseverance 38, 46, 144, 151, 180; and
faithfulness 223; and mercy 142; polar
pair 142; and sincerity 223
Persian language 80, 87, 104, 239; see also
language
personal experiences 25, 314
perspective 1, 5, 10, 12, 24–5, 109, 113,
143, 148, 194, 198–9, 252–3, 269, 312,
314; comparative 32, 246, 251;
divine 274; epistemological 312;
ethical-religious 200; historical 247;
Islamic 217; Judaeo-Islamic religious
267; literary 123, 156, 241; mystical
194; Nwyia’s 5; socio-ethical 88;
traditional 194, 198
Pétrement, Simone 139
360   Index
Philo of Alexandria 140–1, 147, 150
Picken, Gavin 4
piety (taqwā) 24, 29–30, 43, 48, 69–70,
86–7, 180, 240, 249; early Islamic 70;
self-imposed 60
pilgrimage see ḥajj
Plotinus (also Neoplatonic) 194
polar 144–5, 149–50; emotions 43, 226;
states 9, 143–6, 150, 152
polarity (also binarity) 8–10, 137–213,
140–2, 148, 151, 154, 156, 170, 198,
200–2, 205–8, 226, 253, 276
‘polarity within oneness’ (concept) 206
poverty (faqr) 11, 42, 52, 151
power 13–14, 131, 140, 142, 169, 192,
205, 207, 226–31, 267–70, 272, 274–5,
281–2, 285–7, 301; of discrimination
155; divine 14, 149, 198; dual
complementary 140; human 230;
protective 14, 274; royal 140; special
229; of words 229, 267, 269, 271, 273,
275, 277, 279, 281, 283, 285, 287
practices 13, 30, 42–3; ancient 14;
contemplative 304; exegetical 302;
monastic 30; pre-Islamic prophylactic
268; religious 113; special 25, 199;
spiritual 84–5, 90, 176; supererogatory
25, 249; see also acts
praise 61, 69, 89–91, 110, 149, 218, 228,
287; and God 204, 228; and power 231;
public 48, 59
‘praise be to God’ (al-ḥamdu li-llāh) 204
prayers 14, 25, 30, 70, 87, 108, 149, 177,
204, 207, 218, 224, 230, 276–8, 281
praying 41–2, 45, 49, 113
pre-Islamic 8, 14, 206, 238, 240;
background 251; cultural strata 238;
eschatological traditions 241; material
241, 249
professions 88; al-Ḥaddād (ironsmith) 88;
al-Ḥajjām (cupper) 88; al-Khayyāṭ
(tailor) 88; al-Qaṣṣār (bleacher) 88
prophecy 68, 201, 217, 221, 223–5, 249,
252; about the advent of a true Arab
prophet 68; the alleged true heirloom of
129; cessation of 217, 222, 225; given
224; of Muḥammad 64; the ‘sign’ of 40
Prophet 38–40, 42–3, 62–6, 69–71, 125–6,
129, 202, 207, 217–26, 229–30, 268–70,
275–6, 280, 283–4, 306; Muḥammad
42, 128, 145, 198, 217, 221, 252, 268,
306, 316; prayers of the 284; true 41,
64, 67–8, 71; Zechariah 244–5
prophetic traditions 52, 170, 205, 248, 250,
267, 275–6, 303, 309
Prophet’s Companions 269, 301, 316
punishment 43, 52, 144, 150, 198, 203,
205, 248, 275–7
purifying 50, 199–200, 228, 242, 282, 304
purity (Kitāb al-Ṣafā’) 5, 7, 30, 86, 176,
275, 303–4, 313
qalb (heart) 12, 53, 78, 275, 277–9, 304–5,
308
al-Qaṣṣār, Ḥamdūn 84–5, 88, 91, 109–10,
112–15
al-Qaṣṣāriyya 84
qazaʿ (tonsure) 58–9
qiyās (analogy) 300–1, 303; see also
istinbāṭ
qualities 147, 170, 180, 204, 221, 249,
253, 284, 307, 314; bad 170, 200, 228;
blameworthy 169; divine 314; good 77,
180, 203; magical 241; praiseworthy 77,
223
Qurʾān 7–9, 12, 37, 130, 142, 193, 197–8,
267–9, 281–2, 284, 299–301, 303, 306–8,
312, 314–16; account of God teaching
Adam 271; exegesis 298–9, 301–2; and
God 198, 268; and the Prophet’s
amplification of 198, 269, 281; text 143;
verses 9, 14, 58–9, 66, 143, 149–50,
171, 181, 193, 205, 218, 223, 229,
303–4, 311; and worship 198
al-Qushayrī, Abū’l Qāsim (also al-Risāla
al-qushayriyya, The Epistle) 47, 60,
82–3, 87–8, 94, 104–6, 109, 104–6, 109,
115, 151–2, 156, 181, 219, 223, 298
Qūt al-qulūb (The Nourishment of the
Hearts) 146–7
quṭb (axis) 219
Rabbinic 149–50, 193, 246; Judaism 8,
248; lore 150, 246–7; tradition 30, 246
Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya 145
Radtke, Bernd 123, 129
raʾfa (tenderness) 60, 202
rahbāniyya (monasticism) 58, 60, 64–6
raḥma (compassion) 60–1, 113, 141,
147, 153, 156, 193, 198, 201–2, 205–6,
226, 282
Rasāʾil al-Kharrāz 4
al-Rāzī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad
88, 239, 247, 284, 286
refuge 94, 227, 269, 275–7, 280, 284;
granting of 276; seeking 179, 276

religions 2, 11, 23–4, 26, 37, 41, 49, 63–5,
77, 157, 197–8, 251, 273–4; Christian 4,
8, 11, 32, 40, 42, 64, 157, 237, 308;
dualistic 141; extroverted 78; Iranian 1,
40; Islamicists and scholars of 23;
Mandaean 243; monotheistic 139, 141;
Muslim 24, 42, 52, 62, 157, 237;
normative 269; true 41, 43, 65–6, 68
religious acts (ʿibādāt, also nawāfil) 25,
43, 44, 48, 53, 69, 113, 173, 178, 182,
226–7
religious community 30, 238
religious groups 29, 202, 241
religious law 16, 43, 53, 60, 79, 81, 113,
126, 128, 173–4, 197–8, 316
revelation and explication (Kitāb al-Kashf
wa ’l-Bayān) 5
revelations 3, 31, 93, 125, 140, 151, 154,
173, 201, 226, 286, 309, 316
riḍwān (divine contentment) 61, 64, 156
Ritter, Hellmut 156
ritualistic acts 173, 242–3, 281
rituals 14, 113, 242, 278, 280, 282–3
riyāʾ (hypocrisy) 11, 86, 91
Riyāḍa, Riyāḍat al-nafs 13–14, 31, 39, 44,
47, 50, 53, 123, 151, 175, 220
ṣabr (perseverance) 38, 46, 107, 141, 143,
151, 156, 223
al-Ṣādiq, Jaʿfar 106–8
Ṣaffārid dynasty 126, 131
Saints see awliyāʾ
al-Samʿānī 27, 80, 114
Samarqand 79, 92, 94, 130–1
Sarah (the free woman vs. Hagar the slave
woman) 251
al-Sarrāj, Abū Naṣr 6, 47, 82–3, 104–6,
112, 114, 146, 150, 155, 196, 298, 302–7,
309, 315; see also Kitāb al-lumaʿ
scheme of correspondence 131
scheme of divine polarity 206
scheme of polar states 152
scholars 4, 8–9, 11, 23–5, 28, 31, 37, 58,
77, 79–80, 103–4, 123, 170, 303;
modern 2–3; religious 77, 217–18, 252,
303; traditional 123, 128; see also
ʿulamāʾ
schools 16, 79, 82–4, 89, 113; Gnostic 252;
Khurāsānī 83, 89; mystical 29, 31, 78,
87, 89, 92, 102–3, 108; philosophical 40;
and teachers 78–90, 92–4
science 93, 267, 270–1, 300–1; of God 93;
legal 109; mystical 109; occult 299
Index   361
“Sea of Anger” (baḥr al-ghaḍab) 150
“Sea of Mercy” (baḥr al-raḥma) 150
“Seal of Prophecy” (khatm al-nubuwwa)
217
“Seal of Saints” (khātam al-awliyāʾ) 2,3
secrets (Kitāb al-Sirr) 5, 12, 78, 224, 230,
270, 272–3, 303
self (nafs) 38–9, 44–5, 47–8, 77–8, 90–1,
93–4, 109, 169–71, 173–7, 179, 181–3,
249–51, 305; blame 15, 77; delusion
68–9, 85–6, 199; observation 50;
sacrifice 88; transformation 13, 53,
171–3, 180, 182; wilful 249; and world-
denial 45, 48
semantics 27, 37, 61, 196, 198, 273–4
sensory organs 283
Shāfiʿites 79, 245
Shaked, Shaul 1
Shaqīq al-Balkhī 3, 5, 44–6, 53, 145,
173–6, 178
shaṭaḥāt see ecstatic sayings
al-Shiblī, Abū Bakr 16, 51, 102, 106,
112–15, 307
Shifāʾ al-gharām bi-akhbār al-bayt
al-ḥarām 108
Shīʿīs 102, 106–8, 128–9, 217; community
29, 107; doctrines 131, 252; material
106–7; traditions 106
shuhra (show-off) 10–11, 90–1
shukr (gratitude) 38, 141, 143, 156, 176
ṣiddīq see awliyāʾ
ṣidq (sincerity) 11, 29, 49, 68, 112, 156,
176–8, 180, 197, 199, 222–5, 227, 240,
245, 249
sins 27, 43, 84, 144, 177, 207, 277, 282,
286
Sīrat al-awliyāʾ 14, 50, 181, 199–200, 220,
222, 227, 249, 271
sirr (secret, the innermost part of the heart)
12, 77–8, 91–2, 94, 130, 219, 277
Smith, Margaret 4, 48
Sobieroj, Florian 28
Solomon 29, 48
sorrow (ḥuzn) 155, 218–19
soul 40, 47, 90, 144, 169–70, 280–2;
appetitive 170; carnal 170; human 140;
Muḥammad’s 268; pre-created 195
sources 6, 9, 15, 59, 65, 78–82, 102–3,
105–6, 108–12, 125, 130, 238, 241–2,
246, 298–9; al-Sulamī’s 115; canonical
299, 302, 312; literary 39, 43, 52, 308;
primary 12, 25, 104–5, 125, 131
spatial denominations 249
362   Index
spiritual attainments 78, 86, 88, 92
spiritual chivalry 87
spiritual hierarchy 128–9, 199, 217–18,
220, 222, 224, 226, 228, 230, 238,
240–2, 244, 246, 248, 250–3
spiritual practices 84–5, 90, 176; see also
awliyāʾ
Spiritual Purification in Islam: Life and
Works of al-Muḥāsibī 4
spiritual states 91
spirituality 24, 84
Stroumsa, Sarah 27–8
al-Subkī 80, 86–7
Ṣūfī 7, 10–11, 26, 28–30, 39, 59–60, 82–4,
170, 172, 175, 180, 223, 302, 304,
315–16; authors 47, 69, 147; culture 9,
253; disciples 148; doctrines 315;
exegesis 298, 302, 304, 315;
hermeneutics 14; lore 6–7, 25, 38, 44,
69, 102, 104, 106, 196, 220, 226, 277;
manuals 3, 30, 150–1, 228; mystical
psychology 170, 308; and Qurʾān
commentaries 223, 314; systems 31,
46–7, 143; texts 105, 141, 143, 170; use
of al-Ḥaqq as the divine name par
excellence 192; vocabulary 6, 106, 170,
228, 306; writings 14
Ṣūfism 1, 5, 9–11, 13, 23–5, 31, 52, 102–3,
107, 156, 169–70, 252
ṣūfiyya 25–7, 29, 31, 83, 89
Ṣūfiyyat al-Muʿtazila 26–8
al-Suhrawardī, Abū Ḥafṣ Shihāb al-Dīn
46, 51–2, 80, 298, 302, 307–15
al-Sulamī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 15–16,
77, 79–84, 87, 89–90, 103–10, 112,
114–15, 123, 125–6, 129–31, 196,
223, 268
Sunnī commentators 61
Sunnī Islam 79, 301
Supreme Wisdom (al-ḥikma al-ʿulyā)
127–8, 270–1
sūras 142, 269, 280, 282, 284
Syria 59, 64, 66, 237
systems 77–8, 82, 88, 139, 229, 247, 269,
271; al-Tirmidhī’s 272, 278; all-inclusive
Islamic mystical 102; religious 139
Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā 80
Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya 83, 89, 94, 110, 112,
114–15, 130
al-Ṭabarī 62, 64–7
tabdīl, tabdīl al-akhlāq (transformation)
93, 170
tadbīr (God’s governance) 201, 275–6
Taeschner, Franz 87
tafsīr (commentary) 2, 14, 203, 298, 312
Tahdhīb al-asrār 102–5, 107, 109, 111–13
Ṭāhirid dynasty 126
taḥrīf (abrogation) 8, 64, 68
taḥrīm al-makāsib 27
taʿlīl al-sharīʿa (explaining the causes of
the religious law) 126–8
Talkhīṣ Taʾrīkh Naysābūr 107–8
talwīn (variegation) 141, 151, 153–4, 310
tamkīn (stability) 141, 151, 153–5, 157, 310
taqwā (God fearing, piety) 53, 69, 70,
240, 281
Taʾrīkh Naysābūr 80, 107, 110
tark (relinquishing) 50–2, 62, 111
taṣawwuf (mysticism) 24–6, 28, 30, 32, 38,
40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 60, 62, 64
tawakkul (trust, reliance) 38, 47, 69, 111, 151
tawba (repentance) 46, 123, 125, 150, 179
teachers 15, 78, 80, 82, 84–92, 94, 103–4,
106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 126, 128, 130;
al-malāmatī 84, 87; Baghdādī 83, 102,
106, 113; and disciples 15, 103, 105,
107, 109, 111, 113, 115; Khurāsānī 83;
Malāmatī 78, 80, 84, 87–8, 90, 109,
112–13; Nīshāpūrī 84, 87, 93, 109, 112;
spiritual 82–3
teaching 1–4, 9, 77, 80, 84–6, 91, 94, 107,
110, 112–13, 115, 220, 223, 251–2,
307–8; authoritative 113;
comprehensive 270; malāmatī 90, 109,
112; psychological 69; religio-
philosophical 140; religious 65;
treatises 13
texts 1–2, 15, 27, 102–4, 110–11, 113,
194, 239, 252, 269, 315;
autobiographical 2, 129, 239; biblical
245; earliest 13–15, 173; edited 15, 111;
medieval 104; mystical 24; Neoplatonic
195; pseudo-Aristotle 194; sacred
14–15, 302, 307, 315; scriptural 301
al-Thaqafī, Abū ʿAlī 109–10, 114–15
theology 108; see also doctrine
threats 86, 147, 225, 275–6
Tirmidh (people of) 129
Tirmidh (town of) 1, 79, 126
al-Tirmidhī, Abū ʿĪsā 1
al-Tirmidhī al-Ḥakīm see al-Ḥakīm
al-Tirmidhī
tongue 92, 110, 127, 182, 225, 227, 229,
240, 268, 277, 281, 283, 285; al-ḥaqq’s
201; interpreting 315; ʿUmar’s 201

Torah 66–7
traditions 38, 62–3, 68, 105–7, 149, 204–6,
218, 220–3, 226–7, 237, 242–3, 246–50,
268–9, 275–6, 300–4; chivalric 87;
divine 146, 149; esoteric 206; mystical
299
training 39, 44–5, 47, 59, 113, 123, 173,
175, 220; disciplined 31; of the
lower-self 53; of the self 13; spiritual
239; see also riyāḍa
transcendence 151, 273–4, 306
transcendent 182, 245, 309
transformation (tabdīl) 13, 32, 39, 45, 47,
53, 84, 90, 93, 141, 150, 154, 157, 169–83;
inner 39, 171, 174–5, 179; process of
173, 178; psychological 84, 157, 171;
spiritual 32, 90; stages of 178, 182
translators 170, 285
Transoxiana 1, 15, 69, 123, 124, 125,
127–9, 131–2, 173, 238
tribulations (wa-innamā huwa imtiḥān
wa-ibtilāʾ) 127, 284, 287
Trimingham, Spencer 80, 87
‘true believers’ 64–8
‘true realities’ (Kitāb al-Ḥaqā’iq) 5
trust (also tawakkul) 69, 180, 285
trustees (amīn, umanāʾ) 91, 227
truth 6, 11, 41, 47, 91, 93, 154, 156–7,
180, 192–3, 196, 201, 272, 306–7
truthfulness (ṣidq) 4–5, 180, 223, 274, 311
turbans 240, 243–4
al-Tustarī, Sahl 3–4, 44, 156, 219, 268
typology 12, 32, 129, 156, 239, 247,
249–51; binary 202, 248, 251; dual 59;
sectarian 147; special 247; universalistic
deterministic 251
ʿujb (conceit, vanity) 78, 86, 90
ʿulamāʾ (scholars) 77, 80, 123, 128,
217–18, 252, 303; see also jurists
ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb 62–3, 157, 201–2
Umm ʿAbd Allāh (al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s
wife) 239, 241, 244–5, 248
ummat Muḥammad (Muslims) 24, 42, 52,
62, 157, 237
understanding 2, 7, 13–16, 24–5, 27, 103,
105, 128, 130–1, 230, 247–8, 270–1,
273, 299, 301–16; al-Tirmidhī’s
248–50; countless faces of 298–9,
301–3, 305, 307, 309, 311, 313, 315;
direct 144, 304; following 154, 192;
in-depth 9, 308, 316; Qurʾānic
passages 302
Valantasis, Richard 37
Index   363
veils (ghiṭāʾ) 93, 154, 179, 181, 270, 282, 286
verses 12, 59–63, 65–6, 142, 193, 219,
223–4, 250, 268–9, 280–1, 302, 304–5,
307, 309, 311–15; first 171; love 145;
protective 280; Qurʾānic 9, 14, 58–9,
143, 149–50, 171, 181, 193, 205, 218,
223, 229, 250, 303–4, 311; recited 143,
313; sacred 316
villages 70, 79
visions 2, 10, 89, 93, 113, 148, 150, 156,
180, 198, 205, 218–19, 244–7, 279, 308;
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s linguistics 128,
198, 204–5, 221, 282; audacious 128;
biblical 246; contemplative 192;
distinctive 194; dramatic apocalyptic
225; eye’s 299; heart’s 93; idiosyncratic
198; monotheistic 141; nonconformist
249; pious 144; radical 128; vivid 144
vocabulary (alfāẓ, iṣṭilāḥāt) 12, 141, 151,
178, 196, 198, 253, 281, 298; ascetic
171; binary 253
voices 6, 59, 92, 149, 286–7
wāḥid 273–4; see also divine names
waqt (moment, present) 46, 52, 152, 155,
225, 270
wārith, pl. waratha (inheritor) 217–18, 252
al-Wāsiṭī, Abū Bakr 81, 83, 89, 146, 154,
196, 309
watad, pl. awtād (peg, stake) 219, 221–2
water 79, 150, 240–3, 281, 299, 301;
carriers 79, 86; finding 299; of life 244;
spring 240
white clothes 3, 240, 242
wilāya see awliyāʾ
Wimbush, Vincent L. 37
wisdom 71, 127–9, 146, 200, 203, 205,
270–1, 281, 303, 310, 315; divine 14,
128, 156, 239; of Jesus 48; supernal
127, 270–1; words of 183, 305
wives 3, 29, 43, 62, 71, 125–6, 142, 239, 247
women 4, 12, 42, 52, 62, 170, 197, 252
wool (ṣūf) 26, 29–30
woollen garments 10, 31, 39, 58; coarse
26, 29; undyed 30; white 29–30
words 1–2, 14–15, 25–6, 70–1, 109, 196–7,
229–30, 241, 267–70, 272–8, 280–6,
299, 304–7, 309–10, 312; of deliverance
286; of God 175, 308–9, 316; potency
of 229, 269; power of 229, 267, 269,
271, 273, 275, 277, 279, 281, 283, 285,
287; sacred 281, 304; of Shaqīq 175–6;
spoken 278, 309
‘words of power’ 14, 229, 268, 274
364   Index
worship 44, 46, 141, 145, 173, 179–80, Yoḥanan, R. 245–7
182, 197, 199, 201, 203, 225, 227, youth (fatā) 81, 87, 89, 147; see also
302–3, 306 futuwwa
worshippers 47–8, 67, 69, 144, 146,
151–2, 175, 178, 198–9, 219, 222, 227, zāhid (ascetic, renunciant) 10, 37–8
230, 240, 248 Zahrī, Khālid 126
Zechariah 244–6
Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī 147, 196, 307 zīna (loveliness) 49, 172–3
yaqīn 12, 53, 93, 107, 151, 177, 276 zuhd see asceticism